


If We Could Make History

by overprimrose



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Modern Royalty, Politics, Red White & Royal Blue AU, Romance, Some kissing/making out in chapter 4 but no explicit smut, first son of the united states! aaron kwak | aron, mentions of racism and homophobia, prince hwang minhyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:20:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26114071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overprimrose/pseuds/overprimrose
Summary: When an international scandal forces Aron and Minhyun to fake a friendship, Aron learns that he may have misjudged the Korean prince. He certainly misjudged how much Minhyun will come to mean to him.
Relationships: Hwang Minhyun/Aaron Kwak | Aron
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48
Collections: Nu'fics x The Parallel





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warning for brief mentions of racism and homophobia. also for romanticization of the us government????
> 
> this does have spoilers for the book red, white & royal blue, though it deviates from the plot considerably + whenever you hit a line that is particularly funny, it's likely from the book

Aron believed only what he could see, and touch, and feel, and that was a good thing, because otherwise, his bedroom would creep him the fuck out. The first time he’d stepped into it—three years ago, now—he’d sensed heaviness; the room so chockfull of history, it crowded out the damn air.

He’d grown used to it now, but that first day, as he’d stood at the edge of it, he’d promised himself that he’d live in this bucket of brimming history, and he’d overflow the entire damn thing. He would make history remember him.

This was the room that Sasha Obama had once painted pink. The room that had once been Caroline Kennedy’s nursery. It was where Nancy Reagan had first learned her husband had been shot.

(That final fact had, in fact, made Aron lose some sleep, if only because it was a vivid reminder that the incarnation of evil had once lived here.)

And now it was Aron’s room. Of course, his room wasn’t the only place that dripped history like running paint. If he feared ghosts, he’d never be able to live in the White House, the 157-room home and workplace of the President of the United States and her family. Aron lived in the east wing of the second floor, across the hall from his stepbrother.

Three years into his life here, he no longer hesitated to call it his. Instead, he splayed out across the four-poster bed with its ivory canopy, laptop pushed dangerously toward the edge, and a half-eaten bag of barbeque chips on the other side. He wiped his barbeque-dusted fingers against his shirt.

The slam of his door shattered his reverie, and Aron nearly dumped his laptop off his bed. “Jesus Christ!” he swore as Dasol flounced inside.

“Check it out!” she crowed. She lobbed a magazine at him frisbee-style, as Jonghyun slid in behind her. He closed the door with absurd gentleness after its previous treatment. “Pay up, buttercup. Look at page seventeen.”

The magazine’s trajectory had taken it directly into Aron’s barbeque chips, and orange-red powder streaked against his sheets. He swore again as he brushed it off, for good measure.

Dasol had brought him today’s copy of Us Weekly, and one of the smaller headlines on the front read: FIRST SON’S RELATIONSHIP WITH VP’S GRANDDAUGHTER GETS STEAMY.

“You’re fucking joking,” Aron said flatly. Jonghyun was grinning too now, and Aron didn’t know why anyone ever called the younger of the First Sons of the United States ‘angelic.’

The article continued on page seventeen, complete with a picture of Jonghyun and Dasol taken from the state event all three of them had been roped into the weekend before. The source of said ridiculous dare.

The picture was a candid, and a good one, Aron begrudgingly admitted. It had captured the two of them at the exact moment Dasol cracked a joke: Jonghyun’s still-serious face, the corners of his lips beginning to upturn, Dasol gripping his forearm, which he held straight and steady.

“Attention whores.”

“You came up with the bet.” Jonghyun plopped onto his bed, took the magazine from Aron, and began to read the article aloud. “After months of silence, FSOTUS Jonghyun Kim rekindled his romance with Dasol Jung, granddaughter of the Vice President. After meeting with high ranking diplomatic officials, the two talked and danced for hours at a lavish hotel bar before retiring to the same suite. Nearby hotel guests allege that sounds coming from their room could be heard throughout the night.”

“Papa John’s,” Aron guessed. He was now laying flat on his back, hands folded over his stomach. The ceiling of his bedroom did not have a single crack in its even paint.

“Chinese,” Dasol corrected airily, referring to the takeout she and Jonghyun had eaten all night in that suite, likely while throwing out the occasional fake moan to entertain the peoples of America, and steal Aron’s money.

The charity dinner had been horrifically boring, and, as usual, Aron had entertained himself by talking to Jonghyun, Dasol, and the couple staff members who were constantly around them: their PPO, Dongho, and their terrifying Chief of Staff, Kahi. He’d made this ill-fated bet then, that Jonghyun and Dasol couldn’t manage to make the upcoming Us Weekly magazine no matter what they did. Aron had underestimated how quickly shit got published. He had also underestimated Jonghyun’s willingness to let the gossip mills of America think they had the scoop on his sex life.

“Fucking cheaters,” Aron said. “I’m not giving you shit.”

Truthfully, Aron did not totally understand Dasol and Jonghyun’s relationship. They were close—all three of them were close, the two First Sons and the VP’s granddaughter, the White House Trio who’d been thought up nearly six years ago now, when Aron’s mom, Eunhye, only dared to whisper about the possibility of a presidential campaign—but something about Jonghyun’s relationship with Dasol differed from Aron’s. Sometimes Jonghyun’s smile had a tinge of something mysterious when he looked at her.

“Don’t worry.” Dasol patted Aron’s arm. “Next week they’ll be back to guessing which actress you knocked up—”

“—fuck you—”

“but for now: do you think it’ll make more drama if Jonghyun and me match at the royal wedding or don’t match?”

“Uh,” Aron said intelligently.

“If we match, we’re together, but if we _don’t_ match—”

“That’s this weekend?”

“Yeah, what are you wearing?” Dasol chipped, at the same moment Jonghyun went, “you seriously forgot?” Dasol laughed gleefully as Aron’s hopes and dreams melted away.

He was still on his back, so he couldn’t really tilt his head up to the heavens and ask God what crimes he’d committed to face this fate. “It…might have slipped my mind.”

Dasol practically cackled, and even Jonghyun was grinning at Aron’s misfortune.

“Not that it’s worth remembering,” Aron added. The royal wedding. The pairing of the Korean Princess Hwang Sujin to a man of noble blood whose name Aron had forgotten—or was it a man without noble blood? There’d been some drama there, but Aron hadn’t cared enough to keep up. All he knew was there was a fucking forever-long flight to South Korea in their future, just to see decadence in its greatest form.

“Don’t be like that,” Jonghyun said. “They might get another picture of you and Prince Minhyun and Buzzfeed will run another poll—”

“One time!” Aron didn’t know whether it was more embarrassing that he’d been caught using an auto-clicker on a Buzzfeed poll about whether he or Prince Minhyun was a more attractive bachelor or that he’d still lost the poll. “I don’t give a damn about Prince Minhyun, or any comparison they make between me and him.”

And _that_ was the truth. Aron felt only apathy for the Korean prince, with his placid smiles and sugary eyes and the way trashy journalists scrambled for whatever scraps about him they could market.

“He made Us Weekly too,” Jonghyun said. He flipped a couple pages and held the magazine up for Aron to see.

PRINCE MINHYUN, THE WORLD’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR, REMAINS OUT OF THE DATING SCENE

_The young prince hasn’t gone on a date since February, when he was spotted with Korean model Yoon Songhee._

Aron fake gagged. “How can people read this shit?” he mourned. At least Jonghyun and Dasol kept things interesting, and when the tabloids followed Aron’s news, it made sense because he was interesting in general. Prince Minhyun not going on dates was _not_ newsworthy.

Why didn’t they talk about how the prince’s lips tightened ever so slightly when people spoke to him because he thought other people were below him instead? Or about how he was so infuriatingly calm _all the time_? 

Breaking News: Prince Minhyun proven to have the blandest personality in existence

Breaking News: Prince Minhyun runs out of batteries mid-public appearance; staff scrambles to replace them

It had to be fucking tiring, didn’t it? Having the substance of helium and the density of fucking lead? It was exhausting to even look at him.

Aron’s voice echoed around him, and he realized he’d said it all aloud. Dasol was actively grinning, and Jonghyun’s lips were twitching. Aron sighed out all the world’s problems.

“Whatever,” he said. “What are you two wearing? So I don’t also match and _really_ give the papers something to talk about.”

The problem with Prince Minhyun was that the tabloids wanted them to be friends. Or enemies. Something richer and more filling than acquaintances. Something that the public could consume. Aron got it, and he hated it. The Korean American first sons _had_ to like—or hate—the Korean prince. Aron could not feel only apathy toward the South Korean crown.

Yeah, Aron got it. Every campaign his mom had ever run had been haunted by rightwing think-pieces asking if she—and by extension, they—were _American enough_. This, of course, was on top of the insults shot toward the United State’s first Korean woman presidential candidate, who had also been divorced and remarried, and consequently, their unorthodox family, with three family names between them: Eunhye’s maiden name; Aron’s, which he shared with a dad he still visited in California; and Jonghyun and his dad’s. Yeah. The public had not been kind to their fragile, happy family. 

And now the tabloids expected him and the fucking prince of Korea to have so much in common they couldn’t possibly not like (or hate) each other. Too fucking bad that Aron was only apathetic toward Minhyun. Aggressively apathetic. Intensely apathetic. He had never once felt something about the guy a single time in his life, and he would not care for you to imply otherwise, thank you very much.

Of course, Aron didn’t know it, but new staff at the White House were briefed on a few things about the first family before they began working. First: Jonghyun hated to use headphones, and though he’d gotten better, he’d once caused an hours-long lockdown because of the gunshots in his video games. Second: Dasol’s lizard lived in Jonghyun’s room, inexplicably, and occasionally Dasol would stop by to ensure Jonghyun was taking care of it well. If said visits led to her staying with Jonghyun for several days, it was not to be commented on. By anyone.

And third: new staff were told that Aron had an ongoing grudge against the youngest member of South Korea’s royal family, Prince Minhyun, that Aron sometimes went on long, unstoppable rants about everything from his perfect hair to his calm gaze to how the prince had managed to make Time Magazine’s front cover before Aron himself did. It was best to let him tire himself out on the subject.

That, and try to minimize the number of events where the two crossed paths. Unfortunately, the union between Her Royal Highness Princess Sujin and her suitor Jung Daehyun, one of the best actors of his generation, was not an event Aron, Jonghyun, and Dasol could get out of.

“Do you think they had a $75,000 cake at the other ceremony too?” Aron was asking. They were in the process of moving from the main ceremony, which had taken forever, to the reception, which would be even worse, but at least there would be food and alcohol involved.

Kahi shot him a glare that meant, specifically, _I-did-not-get-a-master’s-degree-to-babysit-the-adult-offspring-of-a-world-leader_. Though hardly warranted in this situation, it was a look Aron was familiar with. Like most people who truly knew the first brothers, Kahi preferred Jonghyun over him.

“$150,000 for cake,” Jonghyun mused. “I doubt it, but you never know.”

“They would have bragged about it,” Aron said. “They bragged enough about the multiple ceremonies.” The first ceremony had been a traditional Korean ceremony a few days ago. This one had been much more modern—white dress, rings, the whole shebang. 

Sujin and Daehyun. A princess and an actor. Aron had hoped to see some hint of drama, something to flavor the whole event, but nope. The ceremony had had the creepily over-planned finesse of a stock image.

For the reception, the grand ballroom was decked out in light purple and olive green, and there were bows on each of the tall white columns surrounding the room. A string quartet was playing live music along with a pianist, and one wall of the room was decked out like a wall of flowers and dark green ivy. It was stunning and decadent and altogether over the top. Aron found himself wondering if the other wedding had been equally stunning, cake or no cake.

The bride herself was wearing a gorgeous white gown, and Aron let himself take a couple looks, because honestly, who wouldn’t? She happened to look over in Aron’s direction during one of said looks, and he coughed awkwardly and averted his eyes. Kahi raised a single, judging eyebrow. “I’m gonna, uh, go dance with some people,” he said. He pushed the chair into the table and adjusted his suit.

It wasn’t hard to find a girl to dance with—being the first son did help your game, not that Aron needed it—and Aron let the night melt into as pleasant of a haze as it ever could, considering the antagonizing setting.

There were girls and dancing and champagne, and then clearly too much champagne, because Aron allowed himself to do the one thing he’d been avoiding all night: look at Prince Minhyun.

He looked like… well, he looked like prince charming. Three-piece suit, a glass of champagne in his hand—a full glass, because Minhyun didn’t drink, Aron knew, though he always pretended to at events like this—as he watched Sujin and her new husband with this soft smile on his lips. He looked happy for them, the perfect veneer of Korean royalty, the golden boy, the world’s most eligible bachelor.

Aron normally wouldn’t admit this—in fact, admitting it now made him drain his champagne and get it refilled—but back when it became clear that Aron was marching toward public recognition, he’d floundered. Jonghyun and Dasol had been sixteen when the plans were first drawn for the White House Trio, an unprecedented attempt to control the narrative of the First Family, and Aron had known he’d have to step up.

In the past, it had been a thing for the First Family to stay as far from the public eye as possible, but the media had hounded the Obama sisters relentlessly when they’d been teens. Aron, Jonghyun, and Dasol were just old enough to step into the public eye on their own terms. They could make the entire country fall in love with them.

Or, that was the goal. Aron hadn’t been dumb enough to think that would stop the media from saying nasty things about them, and the thought of them doing that to Jonghyun, who was an entire world hidden behind a thin shell, the boy who was only a small crack away from long-winded rambling about everything he loved, had finalized Aron’s decision.

The press team agreed to market him as the leader of the White House Trio. Aron turned down an offer from NYU’s Journalism school to instead attend Georgetown in Washington D.C., a gamble that could have ended in disaster had Eunhye lost the election. Instead, it snuck him through the backdoor of Capitol Hill, where he’d met the right people and made the right connections, and when Aron and Jonghyun first firmly stepped into view of the people to introduce Eunhye as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, the world had no idea how hard and long Aron had been kicking under the water.

Then came the slander. The rumors. Aron’s play worked, and so it all focused on him, and suddenly, Aron was desperate for some sort of guidance, something to stop him from free-falling. He’d turned to one of the few boys his age who also lived and breathed politics and public image: Prince Minhyun of Korea.

Aron had watched how Minhyun spoke in public, how he gracefully drifted between people. He was poised, and kind-hearted, all sweet smiles and charity appearances and causes that he believed mattered. Aron had even found a magazine with a picture in it that nineteen-year-old him had wanted to be so, so badly. It had been a candid shot of the prince smiling, and he’d looked so friendly, so open that Aron had trailed his fingers over Hwang Minhyun’s glossy, printed cheeks—

He’d even bought the damn thing, even though he’d defended himself to the seller with _‘it’s for my sister.’_

Aron had done all of that, and then he’d met Minhyun, and it had taken only that single meeting for Aron to discern the cold truth: the boy in the magazine was not real. He had _never_ been real.

Hwang Minhyun was beautiful, cold, and detached. He thought he was better than Aron and everyone like him. The more infuriating part of it was that Aron knew that Minhyun hated him too, but he’d never gotten him to admit it.

Minhyun left the table he’d been standing at, leaving his still-full champagne behind, and skirted around the dancers. Aron realized he had his eyes set on Jonghyun and Dasol, standing together at a small circular table draped in a light purple tablecloth, and hurried over just in time to hear Prince Minhyun’s polite voice.

“May I have this dance?”

Minhyun had yet to dance this evening, and now he was bowing and offering his hand to Dasol. 

“I—” Dasol swallowed visibly. She shot a panicked look at Jonghyun, undoubtedly because her truthful answer was _hell no_ but Minhyun had put her in a situation where saying no seemed very impolite.

“She’s been hoping you’d ask _all night_ ,” Jonghyun told Minhyun, because he was the absolute worst.

“Is that so?” Minhyun said, with a tone of feigned interest. His face had not changed, not even as he twisted it to look at Dasol.

“Well, I—I would—I mean, I don’t—” Dasol’s eyes slid to Jonghyun again, and his knee buckled in a way that made Aron certain Dasol had just stamped her heel onto his foot. “He’s right,” she managed, her voice pinched. “I’d love to.” The corners of the Prince’s lips turned up, seemingly unaware that literally no one wanted him there.

“Do you know how to waltz?” Prince Minhyun asked. His soft voice curled gently around the letters. He was using English with them—thank god. Of the three of them, only Jonghyun spoke decent Korean.

“I’ll…pick it up?”

And with that, they joined the other dancers.

“What the hell was that?” Aron hissed to Jonghyun. “Do you think he likes her? Do you think he’s doing this to annoy me?”

Jonghyun scoffed. “Not everything’s about you, you know,” he said. “Royals are weird. It’s probably—ah,” he cut off. “There it is.” Aron looked back over at Minhyun and Dasol. The royal photographer had rushed in to capture a few shots. Those would definitely be fed to the tabloids tomorrow.

Now Aron was laughing. “Someone doesn’t keep up with American magazines,” he said. “Enjoy your love triangle, dude.”

Jonghyun laughed too now. His face had a rosiness to it that it only gained after a drink or two, and his smile seemed genuine. Aron was glad to see him enjoying himself. Coming to South Korea could bring up old grief for Jonghyun: he had lived here until he was ten, until his mom passed away and his dad moved them across the world to live with relatives, in a desperate attempt to keep them afloat. Aron had met him three years later.

“His press team will catch it,” Jonghyun said. “Before they send it in.”

“Don’t think like that, you’ll be the biggest news of the royal wedding.” Trust Minhyun to find a way to keep the attention on himself, even now. Apparently his sister wasn’t allowed to even have one night to herself.

Jonghyun made a face and Aron realized he’d once again aired his grievances aloud. Well. At least they were true. Before he could apologize, Jonghyun was excusing himself so he could dance some more.

Prince Minhyun and Dasol were still on the dance floor. Dasol was smiling, and Minhyun was looking over her shoulder to doublecheck the photographer had gotten his shots. Anger skidded through Aron. Dasol was fucking amazing. The least prince fucking charming could do was realize that as he used her to get attention from the tabloids.

And with that, Aron spun off, no longer able to watch.

If there was one good thing about this wedding, it was the alcohol. Aron’s eyes kept happening to fall on Prince Minhyun, and his mood soured so badly each time, he ended up with another full glass. Were he more sober throughout this process, he might have realized that the more he drank, the more his eyes found Minhyun.

On this particular occasion, Minhyun was alone. He had one hand braced gently against the purple-topped table, and the other curled gently against his leg. It was a casual pose, and he looked so _perfect_ , with the $75,000 wedding cake stacked in eight high tiers behind him. Aron couldn’t stand it.

He gulped down half his wine in one go, and joined Minhyun at the table.

“When you have one of these,” he started, and caught how one side of Minhyun’s smile tightened. _There you go._ “When you have one of these, you should have a second champagne fountain. One is definitely not enough.” All he could see when he looked at Minhyun was how he’d offered his hand gently out to Dasol. How he’d asked her if she knew _how to waltz_ —probably only to feel superior when she inevitably said she did not. Aron went on, “It’s embarrassing. A wedding, with only one champagne fountain.”

“Aron. How nice to see you,” Minhyun greeted, as though he’d only just sighted him. “I had wondered if I’d have the pleasure.”

Aron made an ugly sound. Who the hell talked like that?

“Oh.” Minhyun narrowed his eyes. “You’re drunk.”

Aron had not previously considered if the wine had played a role in how he approached Minhyun, and he did not plan to do so now. He matched Minhyun’s tone. “And _you_ are not drinking.”

“You should consider switching to water.”

“Do you get tired?” Aron asked. “Like, you’ve _got_ to get tired of interacting with so many people you think are below you.”

Minhyun only stared back, like Aron did not even deserve a response. Fine, then. Aron rested an overly friendly arm across Minhyun’s shoulder. It took more effort than it should have: Minhyun had an infuriating amount of height on him. “Please,” Aron drawled. “It’s soo obvious. You don’t have to hide it from me, sweetheart.”

Minhyun extracted himself from Aron’s arm with such care and control that Aron was certain Minhyun wanted nothing more than to shove him away. Aron wished he would. He wanted to see the great Hwang Minhyun snap. He wanted to see what Minhyun was capable of. “We’re done here,” Minhyun said simply.

“Oh, sorry for not being obsessed with you like everyone else.” Aron held his hands up, and a glint appeared in Minhyun’s eyes that he had never seen before, both weirdly triumphant and almost mean.

“I think you are,” said the prince of Korea. “Obsessed with me.”

_“What?”_

“I have never sought you out at these events, nor do I keep up with news about you nearly as closely as you keep up with mine. And I have been exhaustingly civil to you every single time we have spoken, yet, here we are. Again.” The smile grew mocking. “Food for thought. Now, goodbye, Aron.”

With a curt nod, Minhyun turned away, and Aron’s anger was infinite. How dare Minhyun think he could have the last word like that? _Obsessed?_

Aron grabbed Minhyun’s shoulder, and now Minhyun turned back and nearly did shove Aron off himself. For a second, there was more on his face than Aron had ever seen before, his lips set, his jaw clenched, his eyes sharp and annoyed and full of emotion—

But Aron didn’t have long to think about it, because the momentum of Minhyun’s push had off-balanced him, and he was stumbling back toward the table behind them—the table that bore, he noted, horrified, the giant, eight-tier wedding cake.

Aron grabbed at Minhyun’s arm to stabilize himself, but only succeeded in pulling Minhyun forward. In slow motion, with Aron’s hand locked around Minhyun’s wrist, they collided into the table. The cake tottered, teetered, and Aron could do absolutely nothing to stop it as it cascaded to the floor. Eight ornate layers of buttercream, now a stain on the antique hardwood floor.

Aron and Minhyun still weren’t finished falling. Aron had dropped his glass, but not before he’d managed to spill wine over both of them, and now he and Minhyun landed heavily within a dense pile of frosting and yellow cake.

Minhyun’s body thudded against his own, and Aron’s hand burned. He jerked it toward his chest, but it hit Minhyun and left a streak of blood across his white shirt. Aron’s wine glass had shattered.

The room had gone deathly silent. Minhyun had his eyes closed, not like he was still braced for the fall, but like he was doing all he could to not have to look at Aron, and the situation they had caused. Incredulous laughter bubbled in Aron’s chest, and he had to crush it like a pop can to keep it in the pit of his stomach. His mother was going to kill him.

“Oh my _fucking_ God,” Minhyun muttered. He had a smear of buttercream on his cheek. Dimly, Aron realized he’d never heard him swear before.

And in the face of the most surreal moment of his life, with one hand bleeding from his broken wine glass and the other still clutched around the sleeve of his adversary, both of them covered in buttercream, spilled wine, and Aron’s own blood, Aron realized vividly that he had been wrong earlier. Jonghyun, Dasol, and Minhyun’s apparent love triangle would _not_ be the biggest news to come out of the royal wedding.

Right on time, a camera flashed.

It was a bad sign that Kahi had motioned Aron into the seat beside herself for this meeting. Such a thing was a rare occurrence, and if Aron hadn’t already known he fucked up, it sure would have clued him in. Directly across from him in the White House west wing briefing room, Eunhye sat. She had a pair of reading glasses on. Like Aron, she refused to ever wear her glasses in public.

Political analysts Aron hardly glanced at filled the gaps between them, all notepads, files, frowns and frazzled looks. Aron had only been here for a couple minutes, but they had been pulled from their beds in the middle of the night. International scandals did that to you.

In Aron’s hands was a South Korean magazine. On its cover, he and Minhyun stood congenitally together at the cake table, mere seconds before disaster. Aron could not read its headline, but he’d gotten the gist from the American headlines that Kahi had slid over to him before he’d even finished sitting.

THE $75,000 STUMBLE: INSIDE THE FIRST SON’S FEUD WITH SOUTH KOREA’S YOUNGEST PRINCE

CAKEGATE: Aron Kwak Sparks Second Korean-American War

Aron could not stop looking at the picture of him with Minhyun. He was red-faced, clearly drinking, his head tilted up to Minhyun, who looked so perfect that for a second, if Aron could go back in time, he would shove the prince of Korea into a cake again.

“Kwak Youngmin,” his mother snapped, which was both the most terrifying thing she could ever say, and said so quickly after he thought of shoving Minhyun into more cake that he feared she read his mind. “Are you listening?”

“I know—” Aron started. Kahi’s glare intensified to a previously unrecorded intensity. Aron was in the danger-zone for spontaneous human combustion. “I know it looks bad, but he—"

“I cannot express to you how much no one cares who did what,” Kahi interrupted. She gestured at the US magazines. “That’s just what I picked up in the two blocks between my apartment and here. What do you think _Fox News_ is saying right now?”

“I—”

“I can tell you!” she went on. “They’re calling it a gross display of unprofessional behavior that threatens the United States’ relationship with one of our most important political allies—and for once, I might agree with them! You ruined an internationally-important event and disrespected the crown—”

“It’s not like he’s _my_ prince,” Aron said, which was a distinction even he knew made no difference.

“Because that makes it better. You disrespected a _foreign monarch_ while representing our entire campaign, and the United States as a whole.”

“Kahi, I can take it from here,” Eunhye said. Aron was too afraid of her disappointment to look at her. He’d done some dumb things over the past couple years, but nothing like this. And as the reelection campaign crept ever closer, it was ever more vital that Aron be the perfect first son, standing strong behind Eunhye.

“Has Richards put a statement out yet?” she asked. It wasn’t the direct scolding Aron had expected, which was almost worse. A quick reminder that he might have ruined a lot more than a cake before she tore him to shreds.

“Two tweets,” said one of the political analysts. “No official statement, but that will likely change.”

Jeffrey Richards was the Republican candidate Eunhye would most likely face off against next November. He wasn’t one to play fair or kindly.

“Aron,” Eunhye said, and this was it, finally. Except she didn’t look as angry as he expected, more exhausted. She had her hands clasped above the dark wood table. “As your mother, I can appreciate that this might not entirely be your fault, but as the president…” She thinned her lips.

As the president, she couldn’t tolerate such blatantly unprofessional behavior. She didn’t need to say it. Him and Jonghyun fucking around with the rumors the American people liked to eat up about them—who was dating who, who was sleeping with who, who had had a breakup and was secretly devasted—didn’t hold a candle to this kind of scandal. This was international. Political. Aron had fucked up-fucked up.

Because Kahi hated him—something Aron ceded was fair, at this point—she waited until he’d dared to take a drag of his coffee to speak again.

“Pack a bag,” she said. “You’re flying back to South Korea in twelve hours.”

“What? I can’t! I have—”

“I have spent all night on the phone with the royal family’s publicists trying to clean up your mess. We have a solution.” She was eyeing Aron like she doubted his capability to complete said solution. Aron tried to hide that he doubted himself too.

“Have the CIA fake-kill me and ride the dead kid sympathy through the next election?” he offered. Kahi did not laugh. Aron cleared his throat. “I’m supposed to speak in California tomorrow.” He’d spent weeks on that speech. The White House did, of course, have a press team, but Aron hadn’t graduated with a degree in journalism to have someone else choose all his words for him. He might not be good enough to write their speeches entirely, but he’d had a heavy hand in the California speech.

“We’re sending Jonghyun instead.”

Ouch.

“What am I doing then?” Aron asked. There was no point in arguing. Maybe if it was only Eunhye here. Maybe if she wasn’t the President of the United States. He would only embarrass himself if he admitted how much the event and speech mattered to him now. How much it stung that they so easily plucked him straight out of it.

“You are Prince Minhyun’s best friend. You saw him for the first time in forever, and you two got so into some weird frat boy hug-thing that it got out of hand.”

Aron clamped down tight on an incredulous laugh. “No _way_ anyone will believe that. Do they even do that stuff? And anyway, why do I need to go there if all we need to do is be friends? They could send him here for once!” He was tired of meeting Minhyun in situations where he had the upper hand. Aron wanted to do this on his own turf. Home-field advantage and that.

“He will come here,” Kahi said. “In January. But first, _you_ will clean this up. And you better do it well. You two must be _so close_ for the prince to have acted up at his own sister’s wedding.”

This was going to be the worst weekend of Aron’s life. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Can you believe it?” Aron demanded. He was standing in the doorway of Jonghyun’s bedroom, which was all mint greens and dark browns and a giant gaming PC with a glowing red keyboard that matched none of it. He lived across the hall from Aron.

Jonghyun was sitting on his bed, a scattering of papers around him. He was still in school, in his final year as a political science major, and he’d been studying when Aron burst in. His hair was messy, and Aron could easily picture him running his fingers absently through it as he memorized names and dates and styles of government or whatever. 

“Actually, yeah,” Jonghyun said. “It’s kind of an international scandal, and, you know, your fault.”

“His fault!” Aron corrected. “And now they gave me a fucking fact sheet on him, and I’m leaving in four hours. Four hours!”

In truth, Aron had already known most of the facts because he’d hate-read Prince Minhyun’s Wikipedia page before, but the rest of it was criminally boring. Date of birth, August 9th; the youngest of three siblings; his dad passed away years back.

“I’d have more sympathy, but because of you, I’m leaving in twelve.”

“The fact sheet is in case someone questions our ‘friendship.’” Aron included air quotes so dramatic it crinkled the fact sheet. “It’s like the worst game of twenty questions ever. He said his favorite book is _Great Expectations_.”

That got Jonghyun to wrinkle his nose. “Dickens?”

“I _know_.” If Aron wasn’t so scared of Kahi, he would have turned the fact sheet into a paper airplane, or had Jonghyun show him how to fold it into a crane. “He’s a cardboard cutout of a person.”

“Dasol likes him. ”

“It’s going to suck.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jonghyun said. “You could have ignored him, and instead you shoved him into a seventy-five-grand cake. Cry about it.”

“You’re not being very comforting.”

“I’ve got an exam in ten hours and now a flight right after. You are lucky I let you in.”

And that was Jonghyun. Not studious, per se, but a hard worker. Aron would never regret doing what little he could to keep the media from trashing Jonghyun, but sometimes he wondered how much the publicists wished it had been Jonghyun who had been pushed, instead of Aron. _He_ wouldn’t have shoved a foreign monarch into a cake. “What’s it on?”

Jonghyun’s lips quirked. “International relations.”

“Fuck me.”

“At least it’s an exam day,” Jonghyun said. “Otherwise the professor would absolutely call on me ‘randomly’ to ask my opinion about how your actions will affect global politics.”

“Will they?”

“No,” Jonghyun said simply. “You did something dumb, but you’re both fixing it, and honestly, if anyone makes any political decisions based on the actions of two guys in their twenties who have no actual political power, that’s their problem.” He reopened his laptop, and it was clear the conversation was over, but then he looked up one last time. “It really is okay, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to always be perfect.”

Yeah. Right. Jonghyun would say that, considering he _was_ always perfect.

Aron had not managed to sleep on the plane. He had managed to bother Dongho enough that Dongho let him listen to a snippet of one of the songs he produced in his spare time though, which was a rare occurrence.

Too bad Aron’s mood was too low to truly appreciate it.

And then they were in Seongbuk-dong, going to Bohwagak Palace. Dongho had handed him peacefully off like a lamb to slaughter to a man who’d introduced himself as ‘His Royal Highness Prince Minhyun’s Equerry’ and ‘welcomed’ Aron back to South Korea. Said man was in the passenger’s seat of the car taking Aron to the palace, and was currently passing a pen back to Aron, along with a stack of papers for him to sign.

It was a sixteen-page Non-Disclosure Agreement, and Aron had never seen one so long in his entire life. Aron barely refrained from asking what they had hidden in the royal fucking palace and if they were throwing him in the dungeon. As it was, he scanned the papers—no disclosing any information about the state of affairs within the royal family, no disclosing any information found on the personal electronic devices within the palace, etc., etc.—then signed them.

“Good,” the equerry, who had introduced himself as Youngjae, said, and he took the papers and pen back from Aron. “We are meeting His Royal Highness at the stables. He went for a ride this morning, and we’re photographing your first meeting.”

“Stables, huh?” Aron said. He’d been worried about jet lag and how exhausted he must look, but at least Minhyun would be all sweaty or whatever from riding a horse. “Does…His Royal Highness spend every morning riding horses?” It was exactly the kind of thing Aron expected the pampered figurehead of a nation to do.

Youngjae did not answer, which Aron understood. He’d be embarrassed too.

The palace itself was atop a hill, and the stables benefited from the same positioning. Minhyun was not, in fact, sweaty and gross, but rather bathed in the golden light of the afternoon sun. It was such a perfect picture—the white horse, Minhyun with his hair tousled just enough for it to look purposeful in riding clothes and gloves, set aglow by the shining sun, that Aron’s heart skipped a beat.

He felt…underdressed. Out of place. He fucking hated royals.

In a smooth, practiced motion, Minhyun dismounted, passed the reins to a stable hand who materialized beside him, removed a glove, and offered Aron his hand.

Aron took it. “I’m going to puke on you,” he said. Minhyun looked annoyingly like he’d stepped straight out of a Disney movie.

“Hello, Aron,” Minhyun said. His face was as annoyingly symmetrical as ever, his smile as perfect for the public as Aron’s, but Aron was pleased that his voice had some steel to it. No more playing pretend when it was just the two of them, thank god. “I’m not surprised. You are quite the drinker.”

Minhyun wrapped an arm around Aron’s shoulder, and with his stupid height, it left Aron tucked infuriating well into his chest. At least Minhyun did smell slightly of horse, even if he also smelled like something flowery and gentle.

“No worries, Your Royal Highness. I’m sober only for you today.” In retrospect, making himself into an alcoholic was maybe not the clever retort Aron had pictured, but it was too late.

“You do know how to make a man feel special.”

“Go fuck yourself.” They smiled at each other again. Aron tried to picture Minhyun with a black eye.

Finally, the camera clicked its last, and they were motioned onward. Youngjae was quick to tell them to move to the car, so they could be chauffeured to the palace for Minhyun to change and them both to be readied, and then together they’d be taken to the interview.

Inside the palace, Aron was shown to an entire wing that would serve as his for the next two days. His stuff had already been put into his bedroom, which was even more annoyingly ornate than the White House. Bohwagak Palace had a thing for gold.

Aron considered snapping a shot of it for Jonghyun and Dasol, but after signing such an intense NDA, he wasn’t certain he was allowed to, and so refrained. The White House stylists had decided Aron should wear clothes not far from his normal attire, but while Aron normally would have celebrated how comfortable it was, today he fiddled with a loose thread. He couldn’t quite remember how his shirt normally laid.

Even more so than the first family, royals were caught in the thin edge between celebrity-dom and politics. This interview would be far more toward the former. The kind of thing Aron could do in his sleep. Reminding himself of this did little to calm him, and he blamed it on how he knew no matter what he did, he would seem out of place. Aron needed a translator for the interview, which was embarrassing in a way that was difficult to word.

The only way it could have been worse was if they’d made Minhyun translate between them. He had studied literature at Oxford—Aron knew that from both the fact sheet and Wikipedia. And while the way Minhyun’s voice wrapped around English words was decidedly pleasant, until he ruined it by letting some Britishism he’d picked up along the way slip out, it would have been mortifying to use him as the go-between.

The interview itself was in the picturesque park near the palace, where the royal family often did their more informal announcements. A crowd had gathered, but it was nothing huge. A girl with platinum blonde hair held up a large sign with glittery letters. Aron only had time to read “Minhyun Oppa” on it before security shoved it into the nearest trashcan. He hoped it had been something vulgar.

The interview progressed with ease; the interviewer clearly there solely to make them look good. He started by asking Aron what he thought of South Korea.

“It’s beautiful here,” Aron answered. “I’ve had the chance to come a few times since my mom took office, and it never disappoints. Plus, I get to see this guy.” He nudged Minhyun playfully, then held out his fist for a fist bump. Minhyun hesitated, then bumped it with the distinct air of someone committing treason. Aron crushed down some inappropriate laughter.

Maybe this weekend would not be as torturous as he had imagined.

After the interview, Aron slept like the dead, as was the way of jet lag, only to wake up in the middle of the night—as also was the way of jet lag.

And so, at five in the morning, Aron stumbled from his bed, unable to watch the ceiling any longer. On nights like this, his mind liked to play games that measured his life and person up to various standards and perpetually found everything about him below par. Even when reminded how literally anyone would say that Aron possessed everything he could ever ask for, it didn’t stop. He wondered how Jonghyun’s speech in California had gone.

Aron was on his third lap around the guest wing and debating on texting Jonghyun about it when he heard soft footsteps, and froze. Dongho should be the only other person in this wing, but the footsteps sounded distinctly un-Dongho-like.

Aron was poised to run if necessary but was too curious to move as Prince Minhyun entered the lounge. He was rumpled from sleep, wearing a formless Oxford pullover and blue pajama pants, and quietly singing to a song Aron did not know.

The entire picture was…shockingly human, but Minhyun ruined it by spotting Aron and rather than jumping like any normal person, only stood there and blinked a few times before removing one earbud.

“Uh, hi,” Aron said.

“Hello,” Minhyun returned. “Um, I was just, uh.” He couldn’t seem to find the words for anything, and instead he gestured at his arms, as though that explained it. Then noticing his own sleeves, he rolled one up. A vivid red rash stretched along the revealed skin.

“Shit,” Aron exclaimed. His voice was too loud for the stillness of the room. “What did you do?”

Minhyun looked remarkably sheepish. “I have a, uh, horse allergy,” he said. “Or fur allergy, technically. I ran out of cream for it, and I knew there was a first aid kit in this wing. I was hoping...” He trailed off.

“Shit,” Aron repeated. “Wait, so you’re telling me you ride horses for the whole princely image-thing and they do _that_ to you? Do you get that _everywhere_?” Aron’s eyes slid toward Minhyun’s torso, still hidden under his pullover.

Minhyun’s ears turned a red that rivaled his rash, and he covered his chest like he was scandalized by Aron’s gaze. “I don’t normally ride because of this,” he said defensively. 

“So you did it just for me? That’s cute, sweetheart, but next time you can just serenade me or something, no horse needed.”

Minhyun laughed bitingly. “If you must know, I was with my sister, who loves riding, and whose wedding you ruined. She’s demanded _I_ make it up to her.”

A twinge of guilt. Aron dug his nails into his thigh to hide a wince. “At least it wasn’t her only wedding?”

Minhyun didn’t reply, and Aron bristled. “Don’t act like you’re a saint here,” he snapped. “You pushed me.”

“I didn’t mean—” Minhyun actually seemed to be making an effort, and that only put Aron more on edge. Maybe the allergic reaction had scrambled his brains.

“I don’t know where your cream would be,” Aron said pointedly.

“Right.” Minhyun looked down the hallway. “Before that… do you… should we talk about this? Our friendship?”

“We aren’t friends.”

“I just meant… we have to appear together. Do you want to practice?”

Now Aron had to hold back a laugh. So that was it. Everything about Minhyun made it clear that he was the type to rehearse absolutely everything. All polish, no thinking on his feet. Every move calculated by someone other than himself.

“It’ll be easy.”

Minhyun looked doubtful. He tugged at the sleeves of his pullover.

“Here,” Aron said. “Check this out.” He raised his phone, and Minhyun froze, allowing Aron to take a picture that caught Minhyun’s thankfully unblemished hand with the cuff of his sleeve and the Oxford insignia embroidered on it where it rested on a small table beneath a window. Outside, the sun crested over a nearby hill.

Aron opened Instagram, added a filter, and read the caption aloud to Minhyun in a dull monotone as he wrote it. “Jet lag got to me. At least at-Prince-Minhyun is good company.” He posted it, then showed Minhyun how the likes and comments flooded in. “Trust me, this stuff? Easy. Overthink about something more important.”

Minhyun was looking at him, his expression utterly unreadable. He seemed content to stare, even after it was socially appropriate to do so.

“Are you gonna get your cream or not?” Aron said. “What, do you want me to like, rub it in for you or something? Because unless there was something I didn’t know about in the crazy amount of paperwork your people had me sign—”

“Right,” Minhyun interrupted sharply. He stole a look at the rising sun behind him. “Good night, Aron.”

Despite his words, Minhyun walked further into Aron’s wing, and Aron figured this was his place, at least for a couple nights, and therefore it was well in his rights to follow Minhyun. So he did. Standing in the bathroom doorway gave Aron a view of Minhyun’s strong profile. His jawline. Aron realized vaguely that maybe Minhyun was waiting for him to leave so he could remove his pullover, but still he stayed. Minhyun fished out the cream and put it in his pocket.

Aron let him pass again, and Minhyun paused in the next doorway. He looked back at Aron.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” he said, and was gone.

Aron touched the bridge of his nose, and the thin wire across it, suddenly aware of the lenses on his face. Fuck.

What was it with how Minhyun constantly got the most infuriating of last words in? That had been totally pointless, but Aron’s heart was pounding from anger or shock or whatever. He barely even wore his glasses around his family.

Calling the event scheduled for the next day an “appearance” had been rather generous on Minhyun’s part, as it was a staged photoshoot. Aron was no stranger to them, which was why he was utterly aware of how ridiculous this one was. They’d gone to a studio to do it, and so far had used three different sets: a garden, a library, and now a room that looked too perfectly casual to be anything but fake.

Of course, they’d had to change into various outfits along the way, Minhyun in Burberry coats and scarfs and sweaters; Aron in polo shirts and turtlenecks and a button-up with the top couple buttons undone, decidedly less fancy than Minhyun at nearly every turn.

It was an obvious show of their separate images: Aron witty and thoughtful and real; Minhyun halfway out of a storybook. At one point, they even gave Minhyun a flower to pin to his lapel.

“Did I miss when we got engaged?” Aron muttered to him, particularly once it became clear that the Korean personal bubble was decidedly smaller than what Aron was used to.

“Don’t flatter yourself. The palace giftshop needs some new items. Maybe we’ll make a t-shirt.”

Aron snorted.

“You’re right. Likely only a calendar.”

“I will never understand why so many people care about your life.”

“I thought we already established that you are at the top of that list,” Minhyun said, and it took Aron so much effort to keep his anger off his face that he elected to end the conversation entirely.

The only tolerable part of the morning was that the photographer, who had clearly been summoned last minute, had his young daughter with him. She was well-behaved and quiet, young enough to have brought a toy with her. To Aron’s humor, it wasn’t a doll, but rather a large robot action figure.

Despite the toy, however, she was much more fascinated by Minhyun than anything else, and stared at him constantly, which really was a taste of his own medicine. Minhyun seemed to have no idea what to do about the looks, and Aron caught him with red ears and seemingly unable to look the small child in the eyes more than once.

Aron predicted early on that she’d find some way to approach Minhyun, and he had looked forward to it for most of the photoshoot, because watching Minhyun crash and burn as he tried to interact with a small child would be highly entertaining, in Aron’s humble opinion.

Sure enough, the girl took her chance when the photographer was called over near the entrance. She brought the action figure up with her, cradling the robot in her arms like a baby.

Aron saw her before Minhyun did, but he offered no warning, which meant she got Minhyun’s attention by tugging on his pant leg. Almost immediately his face went red, though Aron hadn’t anticipated just how soft his smile would get. He crouched down beside the girl, and though Aron could understand little of their conversation, it was easy enough to see when Minhyun pointed toward her action figure.

The thought of Minhyun, who listed _Great Expectations_ as his favorite book, having a conversation about something like _Transformers_ filled Aron with glee, and he waited with bated breath, knowing that Minhyun would crash and burn at some point, and only hoping he’d understand just how badly it went.

But the young girl was beaming at Minhyun, who was now putting on a deep voice and saying, “ _Optimus Prime_.” Aron had never experienced anything so surreal in his entire life.

Except then it only got worse, because the girl made Optimus Prime rise as though flying, then bank a hard left into the leg of the makeshift table beside them. It wobbled, and Minhyun’s water bottle tipped off the edge, spilling over his leg and shoe.

Despite Minhyun’s quick grab for the bottle, it left a dark stain running down one leg. The girl instantly fell silent, her eyes first widening, then her lip quivering. She backed away from Minhyun, who was telling her something, his arms held up in a placating gesture. 

But the girl didn’t seem to believe him, and guilt welled in Aron for hoping that this conversation went badly because now the girl seemed ready to cry. At least Minhyun didn’t seem angry with her or something—Aron would have expected him to scold her, no matter how clearly it had been an accident. Instead, Minhyun pointed at Optimus Prime and put on that same ridiculous voice. Whatever he said was enough to make the girl smile even through her sniffling.

Minhyun took a cautious glance toward the photographer, who was still distracted by something near the front of the studio. Dongho and Minhyun’s PPO had joined him. None of them had noticed the mishap, and now Minhyun said one final thing to the girl and hurried off toward the bathroom.

Left alone as the girl headed back to the area where she had been sitting before, Aron hung motionless before succumbing to his curiosity and following Minhyun down the hall. The various sets took up most of this studio, and so the back hallway was thin and windowless, with only a few yellow-tinged lights.

Minhyun had left the door to the single-stall bathroom open. Aron could see his shadow from the hallway.

Minhyun seemed surprised to see that Aron had followed, and Aron tried to make it seem casual. Like, yeah, of course your sworn enemy would come to the bathroom with you after you spilled some water on yourself. Nothing to see here.

“So… _Transformers_ , huh?” Aron asked. “That didn’t make the fact sheet.”

“What?”

“You got one about me too, right? In case someone quizzed us on our friendship?”

“Of course. I didn’t know you swim competitively.” Minhyun was patting at his leg with some paper towels, to little effect.

“You can think about me shirtless later. Yours made you sound like you hate, like, everything.”

“That’s hard to imagine, considering it was a list of things I like.”

“You would have been better off putting _Transformers_ ,” Aron said. “But seriously—giant robots?”

Minhyun sighed. “It’s a massive franchise, of course I know of it.”

“That didn’t seem like you only know _of_ it.”

Minhyun had switched from wiping at his pant leg to patting it with more force than necessary. Aron wasn’t certain if it was because Minhyun was annoyed with him or that he’d realized this wasn’t going to fix his clothes. “‘Sometimes even the wisest of man or machine can make an error,’” he said.

_“What?”_

“That’s what I told her. It’s a quote,” Minhyun said shortly. Then more softly, “I didn’t want her to blame herself.”

“Commendable,” Aron said. Then, realizing that that could be inferred as him complimenting Minhyun, and worse, that he meant it, he added, “Optimus Prime would be proud.”

“It’s hard to grow up in a family that expects perfection.” Minhyun was still staring intently at his leg, paying it more attention than the conversation. Aron nearly asked him what he meant, whether he was speaking from experience, but before he could, Minhyun huffed.

“I’m not going to dry this,” he said. “They’re probably missing us. We should go back.”

They only made it halfway back before a loud crack echoed from outside. It sounded horribly, impossibly like a gunshot, and Aron and Minhyun froze. Fast footsteps echoed on the hard floor, and Aron barely had time to think about finding cover before Dongho all but materialized before them. He pulled open the nearest door and shoved them through it.

“Stay down,” he ordered, no sign of his normal friendliness, and the door banged shut behind them, leaving them in darkness. Aron edged forward, but his leg tangled with Minhyun’s, and they went sprawling forward.

Minhyun landed first, sending an empty mop bucket careening against a shelf of what smelled like industrial-strength cleaner, and Aron thudded against his back. He whacked his nose off Minhyun’s shoulder and swore.

For a long, terrifying moment, they were both entirely still and silent, as that fall had not been quiet. Then Aron laughed lowly, more a release of tension than humor, and said, “We have got to stop ending up like this.”

Minhyun huffed. It did not sound dignified, not when the very top of Minhyun’s head was obscured by the fronds of a mop. “Get off me.”

Aron’s hand was shaking where it was splayed against Minhyun’s back. He’d managed to tear open the cut from his wine glass on his way down, but thankfully it didn’t seem like he’d bled on Minhyun again. “Tell me how you know about Transformers first.”

“Why wouldn’t I know about it?”

“You hate pop culture. You said _Great Expectations_ was your favorite book.”

“Ah,” Minhyun sounded faintly embarrassed now, but that might have just been him inhaling dust. “I do…like the book,” he said.

“But?”

“It has good themes. Loyalty over wealth, affection over class—”

“—you’re _fucking_ joking—”

“Lower your voice!” Minhyun hissed. “If you didn’t forget, we haven’t been cleared yet.”

“Tell me why you like Transformers.”

“Get off me, right now.”

“What? You don’t like having me on top?” Aron asked, and apparently, Minhyun very much did not. Stars flashed in Aron’s vision as he clocked his head off one of the shelves, and then Minhyun was above him, pinning him to the ground with a single well-placed thigh. Dust and industrial cleaner swirled through the air, so thick it was hard to breathe.

If Minhyun had expected this to cull Aron’s actions, he was sorely mistaken. “So you do have some fight in you,” Aron said. He bucked up to throw Minhyun off, but Minhyun had height and weight on him, plus a fistful of Aron’s collar. Gaining the upper hand was impossible.

“Do you want to get us both killed?” Minhyun hissed. There were footsteps outside. Minhyun looked at where the crack of light came in through the door and ducked down closer to Aron.

It had not occurred to Aron to be afraid, nor that Minhyun might be. His retort died on his lips. “Hey,” he said awkwardly. “It’ll be okay.” His voice was low, and Minhyun clenched his jaw so tightly that Aron almost expected him to bash him against the floor again.

“You might be used to this,” Minhyun hissed. “But this doesn’t happen to—"

“Dongho’s, like, the strongest person ever, and—and I don’t know anything about your guy, but holy shit, he’s fucking huge, so he’s got to be good too.”

Minhyun seemed unsure how to take Aron’s words, but when Aron nudged him, Minhyun slid off of him—at least, as much as he could. With their orders to stay down—orders Aron previously had not been thinking about, but Minhyun clearly had—there was little room, and zero chance of them both sitting up. Instead, Aron ended up on his side, pressed against the closet wall to his front, and Minhyun behind him, nearly spooning him. Aron could hear his fast breathing.

“It’ll be okay,” Aron repeated.

“Don’t treat me like a child,” Minhyun snapped. “I don’t need to be patronized by someone who hates me.”

Aron winced. “I don’t hate you,” he muttered. He was glad for the darkness, which hid his undoubtedly red face and ears. “I have no strong opinions.”

“This conversation?” Minhyun asked. “Again?”

Aron would have taken that as petulant, the voice of a spoiled young prince who had never dealt with anything difficult in his entire life, but he could still hear the fear hidden under Minhyun’s stiff words. Minhyun was even younger than Jonghyun. The thought sent a pang through Aron.

Silence outside. No sign of an all-clear. “I wasn’t patronizing you,” Aron said softly. “I’ve never been in a situation like this either.” The confession drained whatever anger remained in Minhyun away. He took a long breath.

“Tell me why you hate me,” he demanded.

Aron wanted to tell him again that he truly did not care about him, but even he had to recognize that that wasn’t entirely true. “You were an asshole to me the first time we met.”

“What?” Minhyun seemed genuinely surprised by that, and annoyance stirred in Aron’s gut.

“You don’t remember,” he asserted.

An awkward pause, and Aron wanted to laugh bitterly. So that was it. Minhyun truly didn’t remember.

“Remind me?”

“The Rio Olympics,” Aron said. It had been one of the first events he’d ever gone to with Eunhye, a way to catch the public’s eye. Jonghyun had been a minor still, so Aron had been alone and desperate to leave an impression on important people. To convince the press team that he was good enough to be the face of the White House Trio, deserving of their faith.

He had wanted to do his mom proud.

“I introduced myself, and you turned to your security and asked them to get rid of me.” One side of Minhyun’s smile had tightened as he shook Aron’s hand, and Aron had seen who Minhyun truly was, and how much of him was a lie, and he had refused to ever allow himself to forget it, no matter Minhyun’s charm. Especially not because of Minhyun’s charm.

And so Aron had built his entire image around being real and thoughtful and present, none of the peaceful, vapid smiles and bland charity appearances that worked so well for Minhyun. Aron’s image was harder, and more satisfying. He didn’t know how Minhyun could stand himself.

“I remember now,” Minhyun said. “I didn’t know you heard that.”

“You didn’t even say it in Korean.” How easy it would have been for Minhyun to hide himself better, but he hadn’t even bothered. A governor’s son simply wasn’t important enough for such a thing.

A long, embarrassed pause. Aron tried to turn around to see Minhyun’s face, but it was too cramped.

“If it helps,” Minhyun said. “I was kind of an asshole to everyone back then. My father had passed away fourteen months earlier, and I was still dealing with it.”

It was something Aron had known. A fact that fit very cleanly on both Wikipedia and Minhyun’s fact sheet: father, deceased after a long-term illness. And maybe, maybe Aron could have dismissed it as an excuse if he hadn't seen the very real ways grief affected people.

When Jonghyun was sixteen, they’d visited South Korea, and Jonghyun had hated every second of it. Only when Aron confronted him for ruining the vacation for their parents did Jonghyun admit that part of him had always believed the reason he couldn’t see his mom anymore was because he was in the United States, and she was still in Gangneung, a place that never changed from where it lived in Jonghyun’s childhood memories. Visiting it when it no longer had her in it hadn’t been a nostalgia trip for him, it had been a nightmare.

Two years later, when Jonghyun got his American citizenship, and Eunhye had tentatively talked to him about their plans to navigate his dual citizenship, as it was hard to justify the first son having an obligation to serve in another country’s military, Jonghyun had suggested he drop the South Korean citizenship entirely. Eunhye had insisted he didn’t have to, and even Aron had been surprised, but Jonghyun’s dad had not been. Sad, yes, and grieving in his own way, but not shocked by his son’s actions.

“Was that all that happened?” Minhyun asked. The question dragged Aron from his memories, and he wondered how long he’d been silent.

“No!” Aron said. Because _wasn’t it enough_? But Aron also understood. He’d had much worse said to him, and about him. Minhyun’s words should not have festered like they did. “They compare us a lot,” Aron admitted. “Online and in magazines and that. But you—you were born for this. It’s what you were made for—like literally, everything about you is perfect. No one would ever tell you that you don’t belong.”

Minhyun was silent behind him, and Aron had no way of guessing the thoughts in his head, but he wasn’t finished yet.

“Me? They still say my mom doesn’t belong. That my family is broken, ‘cause me and Jonghyun both have different names than Mom. And Jonghyun… God, I want to protect him from it so badly, but he’s so much better than me. Half the time, he’s the one protecting me, and I’m just…” It was too much to put into words. “You’re the youngest of your family, but you have everything that I don’t. You’re everything I’m not.”

For a long while, Minhyun was silent, until Aron so fully regretted saying anything that he nearly took the words back, as though he ever could.

Then, Minhyun spoke. “I can’t fix any of that,” he said. “But I can promise you that I have never once thought you were beneath me, or that you didn’t belong where you are.” Then, almost like an afterthought, he added, “and I am sorry about Rio. Too few people are willing to tell a prince when he is being a dick.”

“Thanks,” Aron said, and his voice was embarrassingly vulnerable so he added, “I could help you with that. The calling you a dick, I mean. I’m pretty good at it.”

“In that case,” Minhyun said, and now Aron could hear his growing smile. “Am I a dick for the number of times I’ve thought vividly about slamming your head into something hard?”

Startled, Aron laughed. “You can cross that one off your bucket list,” Aron said. His head was still smarting from where it had struck the shelf. “I probably deserved it.”

“You did,” Minhyun agreed simply. He took a deep breath as though to say something else, but before he could, the door to their closet flung open.

Aron blinked up into the sudden light, at Dongho’s hulking silhouette. “All clear,” Dongho said. “There was a robbery down the street. Nothing to do with us.” He surveyed Aron and Minhyun, and Aron became uncomfortably aware of their almost-spooning in the supply closet, and the fact that Aron’s head was only inches from a large mop.

“You look…cozy,” Dongho said. And that was all they needed to scramble to their feet and leave the closet. Aron found himself unable to meet Minhyun’s eyes, as they both tried to return themselves to presentable, awkwardly tugging at clothes and fixing their hair. Minhyun’s pantleg was still wet.

“I think that’s the end of the photoshoot,” Aron said, and he swore he saw Minhyun smile.

Several hours later, Aron was all set to board the plane to take him back home. He and Minhyun were huddled next to each other.

“So…until January?” Minhyun was saying, because it turned out that saying goodbye to your worst enemy who you’d had a heart-to-heart with during a possibly life-threatening situation was an intensely awkward affair.

“Right,” Aron said, apparently intent on making things worse. He would return to the US, the two of them would bask in the comfort of the world thinking they were friends, and this would all be behind them. In January, Minhyun would arrive in the United States, there would be a massive state dinner, the two of them would once again be very public friends, and after that, Aron would never talk to Minhyun again.

That was the plan. Except, for the first time, Aron could see the flaws in it. He wondered how no one else had ever seen them before.

“Give me your phone,” he ordered hurriedly.

Minhyun stared back so blankly, Aron wondered at how he possibly had friends. Eventually, Aron just snatched the phone from his hands and added his contact information before anyone could arrest him for stealing royal property or whatever.

“We’ll have to have to keep this going,” he explained.

“Going?”

“What, did you think we could be friends for two days and then never speak to each other publicly again? We’ll have to keep it up, and it’d be annoying to have to go through handlers. Now you can message me.”

Right,” Minhyun said slowly, like he still didn’t get it, and Aron left him to figure it out.

Minhyun did, apparently, figure it out because only a few days later, Aron got a message for a number he didn’t recognize.

_This bloke looks like you_

__

_This is Minhyun, by the way_

Aron would never admit it to anyone, and he sent nothing back because Minhyun had called him a ‘bloke’ and consequently did not deserve a response, but the message made him smile.


	3. Chapter 3

Jonghyun’s graduation came and went. It was hard for Aron to not notice how busy Jonghyun got after it, seeming to skip the period of complete uncertainty that had plagued Aron post-graduation, but he didn’t dare talk to him about it. That would only make it hurt more.

Instead, as the summer progressed, Aron filled his days with swimming practices and various appearances and interviews. He wrote two articles that made it into major publications, and they weren’t what he imagined he’d be writing when he decided to pursue journalism, but they were something. Praise and criticism toward him flowed from every corner of the internet.

He hardly thought about Minhyun until Aron’s phone recommended him an article about Minhyun’s sense of style. Aron knew exactly how ridiculous these things could get, so of course he opened it.

He found exactly what he expected: a poorly disguised thirst article.

Now that Aron knew more about Minhyun, such a thing was more hilarious than irritating. He clicked through the slideshow of photos—Minhyun in long coats and soft sweaters and buttoned shirts with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, and finally stopped at a photo of Minhyun wearing a ridiculous bucket hat. 

Hardly able to hold back his laughter, Aron managed to film a video of himself zooming in and out of the photo as he also made mockingly appreciative “yeah”s. Without further thought, he sent it to Minhyun. He hoped he was offended. 

Aron had not expected a reply, so he was startled when one appeared near instantly. 

_Do you often look through slideshows of pictures of me?_

Startled, Aron looked at the screen, where an offending 29/31 sat at the bottom of the photo. Fuck. 

When he didn’t respond, he got another text:

_It’s okay to admit it. I won’t judge._

Aron could practically hear how smug Minhyun was.

 _It was mostly pics of your sister,_ he lied, which earned him some goddamn peace and quiet. 

  
  


A week later, Minhyun retaliated with a picture of a clickbait-y article that suggested Aron was secretly a father and “ _but we were so careful, darling_.” Aron was ashamed to admit it, but the message startled enough of a laugh out of him that Kahi threw him out of a briefing meeting.

He’d gotten halfway to his room, not even mad about the expulsion, when Minhyun followed up with a picture of the article’s punchline: that Aron’s children were his dogs.

HRH Prince 🙃

Why does your dog look exactly like you

did you just call me cute?

you totally just called me cute

for your enjoyment

Send the dog next time  
  


September 10th

HRH Prince 🙃

hey look i can be all fancy w a horse too

I bet you were afraid of it

terrified

they’re so large?

I have heard American horses are bigger than normal

really?

No

  
  
  


September 19th

HRH Prince 🙃

I’m so bored I’m texting u ♥

Normally I’d be too important to respond but I’m in a meeting about family finances

Save me

ready the horses i’ll storm the palace at dawn

Unfortunately it is dawn right now

Or close enough

shit 

who tf schedules a finance meeting so early?

My lovely brother

The only good part is getting to watch Sujin passive-aggressively tear his head off

the more you tell me about your sister the more i think i might be in love with her

Please do come on to my married sister whose wedding you ruined

It would be very fun to watch

noted. 

will pine for her silently.

I bet that will be hard for you.

September 30th

HRH Prince 🙃

  
  


You never did tell me why you like transformers

Is there a reason you’re asking me this in the middle of the night?

couldnt sleep. thinking of u <3

you text me constantly in the middle of the night

You should get some sleep, Aron

Hypocrite

tell me why you like transformers

Do I need a reason to like giant robots fighting for justice?

no 

but its not exactly a cinematic masterpiece

One, How dare you

But if you must know

Young me thought liking a hero who was against being a king made me a rebel

“Thrones are for decepticons”

rebel against the crown? sexy 

How very american of you

You have a swim competition tomorrow, right?

… you know my schedule?

I saw it in a magazine

Is that why you aren’t sleeping?

i don’t get nervous

Right

Have fun dazzling the crowds with your shirtless torso

Nice tattoo, by the way

October 1st

HRH Prince 🙃

Did you win?

Ah. Never mind. Looked it up.

4th isn’t bad?

you do know you can stop talking, right?

You are first in my heart

November 3rd

Jonghyun’s strategy of being the less problematic first son normally served him well, but the caveat was that he had much less experience with Kahi’s glares than Aron. Now dealing with the full force of one, his face had grown spectacularly red. Aron was certain his own didn’t look much better, though. It couldn’t be healthy to hold back this much laughter.

He, Jonghyun, and Dasol were in a meeting with Kahi and several organizers who assisted them with the New Year’s party-slash-fundraiser they threw annually at the White House. They’d been working through the hundreds of odds and ends for months, and this meeting was to go over the final specifics with Kahi.

This year, Jonghyun had selected the charity, and was meant to be supplying some final details. He’d chosen a personal cause—support for children who had to learn English while in the public school system—but that wasn’t the cause of his reddened face, nor Kahi’s glare.

About ten minutes ago, their meeting had been interrupted by the chirp of a cricket. As the White House exterminators were rather good at keeping bugs out and Jonghyun had been known to occasionally lose a cricket while feeding Dasol’s lizard, he’d been immediately deemed the one at fault.

Kahi had tried valiantly to ignore it, even as Jonghyun began to color, and the glaring had only began once she seemed to accept this meeting would not get anywhere when not a single person was paying attention to anything except Jonghyun’s brilliantly red face and the cricket, who still chirped away from some dark corner. Finally, she dismissed the meeting with her usual I-have-places-to-go-and-shit-to-do attitude.

The organizers that had attended left first, then Jonghyun made a dash for the door.

Kahi intercepted. “If you think you’re leaving this room before you catch that goddamn bug, you have another thing coming, Jonghyun,” she said, without even raising her head.

Jonghyun had managed to get a hand on the door. He looked longingly toward freedom. “Right.”

“Don’t come out ‘till one of you are dead,” and with that, Kahi swept up her folders and disappeared down the hall.

“Well,” Dasol said, and hopped onto the table. She crossed her legs. “This’ll be interesting.”

And that was how Aron ended up texting Minhyun an entire story about Jonghyun crashing into several antique pieces of furniture and almost knocking over a bust of William Taft before finally managing to catch the cricket. He then insisted he could not kill it but would rather take it outside—ignoring Aron’s very reasonable argument that his initial plans for the cricket were to feed it to a large lizard so why did killing it now matter—only to drop it in the hallway. 

The cricket had taken off in a desperate attempt at freedom. Jonghyun had lurched after it and smacked his head off the corner of the doorway.

“You know that’s going to end up in Kahi’s purse or something,” Dasol had said. Jonghyun had only groaned and leaned back against the wall.

“It doesn’t matter,” he’d admitted. “I dropped a whole dozen.”

It had been funny then, and it was funny while texting Minhyun—at least until the silence was broken by the chirp of a cricket, coming distinctly from within Aron’s room.

IT’S HERE, he texted Minhyun. IT’S COME FOR ME

When with friends, it had been easy to conveniently forget that Aron really wasn’t much for bugs, but alone? In the middle of the night?

 _Yes, the most harrowing of creatures: the cricket_ , Minhyun responded.

IT’S GETTING CLOSER

_Good. It’ll convince you there’s nothing scary about it_

_I think they’re cute._

“Okay, asshole,” Aron said, as soon as the call connected. “Clearly, we’re talking about different bugs if you think—”

“Aron?” Minhyun’s voice was soft and uncertain. “Did you just call me to—” He cut off, and added more firmly, “give me a minute.” There were some muffled words, as he spoke with whoever he was apparently with, and then Minhyun’s voice again. “Did you call me to convince me crickets are scary?”

“Obviously,” Aron said. “It’s the long-ass legs. I saw the one today with Jonghyun. It was hard to tell who was chasing who, and now it’s come for _me_.”

“I like their antenna.” Once again, Minhyun was making it very clear he didn’t understand the severity of this situation.

“What if it heard me tell Jonghyun to squish its friend today?”

“Weren’t you saying that cricket got away?”

“Exactly! It had time to tell all the others.”

“If it’s that big of a deal, get Jonghyun.”

“It’s the middle of the night!” Aron protested. “I can’t wake him up for something like this. He’s been so fucking busy recently doing god knows what— Holy shit, I think it just got closer.”

“It is keeping you up, though,” Minhyun said. “You should try to sleep.”

“With it here?” Aron scoffed. “I’m under siege, Minhyun.”

“I know, I know,” and it would have been more comforting had Minhyun not clearly been holding laughter back. “Is there a guest room you could sleep in?”

“That would be stupid.”

“You’ve spent the past fifteen minutes convincing me it wasn’t stupid to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid!” Aron insisted. “I am—concerned. Reasonably concerned.”

“Aron.” Minhyun’s voice had grown more firm. “Go to sleep.”

“But the—”

“Aron.”

Except now that Aron was maybe seeing the appeal of what Minhyun was saying, he had a new problem: he had not thought before he called Minhyun, but this was their first phone call, so he had never considered how to say goodbye to Minhyun. It was surprisingly difficult.

“I’ll sleep if you do too.”

Minhyun laughed. It was a pleasant noise, even across the crackly speaker. “Aron, it’s four in the afternoon here.”

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Minhyun echoed, and laughed again. “You need sleep. Goodnight, Aron.”

“Good… afternoon? Shit, were you doing something? Did I interrupt?”

“Finance meeting,” Minhyun said. “But, thankfully, calls involving international relations are an adequate excuse to leave.”

Now Aron was laughing too. “You’re kidding.”

“Your cricket is the best thing that could have happened to me,” Minhyun told him. “Now _goodnight_.”

“Goodnight,” Aron whispered.

PRINCE MINHYUN CAUGHT ON DATE WITH KOREAN MODEL YOON SONGHEE

November 16th

Okay, so maybe Aron had made a bit of an impulse buy. He’d been dropping a bottle of coke onto a 7/11’s counter when he’d spotted the headline, and without even thinking, he’d swiped the magazine off the stack. Now, its glossy cover glared at him.

_Pics Inside!_

In his defense, Minhyun had been on his mind because they’d been talking almost constantly. Aron didn’t have a choice there: after the cricket fiasco, Minhyun wanted photos of Dasol’s lizard. And if Aron was sending lizard photos, then he had to also tell Minhyun the story of how Dasol’s lizard was named Dosol, and that because every intern in the White House liked to gossip about why Dosol lived in Jonghyun’s room, they also at some point looked the Vice President’s granddaughter in the eye, and mistakenly called her by her lizard’s name.

Minhyun had found it nearly as funny as Dasol and Jonghyun did, which had been cute, and it had spurned Aron on to tell Minhyun that he, Jonghyun, and Dasol would get along really well. Something in Aron liked the thought of them all becoming friends. Two different worlds, colliding into one.

After that thought, he’d found himself unwilling to go without talking to Minhyun for too long.

Hence this, now. The magazine.

HRH Prince 🙃

Your date looks super boring

Wheres the chemistry? the pizzaz? 

Excuse me? 

Your date. With the model.

Songhee?

We had a good time.

Still no passion.

im a simple guy. i like my romances to be shakespearean

I prefer for mine to end without bloodshed

oh wow so witty

seriously, i should show u how it’s done

Right, like you’re so romantic.

Please. I’d sweep you off your feet, sweetheart

Two days later, during a phone call so long that Aron had to bring his phone with him into the kitchen to make food during it, Minhyun admitted that Aron’s assessment had been closer to the truth than he’d let on. Songhee was a friend of Minhyun’s who’d done him a favor when his family had decided enough was enough with the tabloids’ obsession about Minhyun’s supposed celibacy.

 _I told her to name her price_ , he said. _And it was grilled eels._

Truthfully, Aron didn’t get why Minhyun didn’t find someone for an actual date, but Minhyun clammed up when he asked about it. This was a wall Aron had grown used to hitting: the royal family clearly had their issues, and Minhyun steadfastly refused to go any further in-depth about them than his occasional annoyance toward his brother. Aron didn’t push too hard.

 _It can be hard to grow up in a family that expects perfection,_ Minhyun had told him so seemingly long ago. Aron was starting to think he hadn’t fully appreciated just how open Minhyun had been with him on that day.

Still, the next time they called Aron reminded Minhyun that he had signed a sixteen-page NDA, so Minhyun could talk to him, and worst-case scenario, he’d be able to throw Aron into the dungeons if he didn’t keep his side of the bargain.

“That’s a lot of words to tell me you’re my friend,” Minhyun said, and his smile over the grainy video call was sleepy and soft and so _fond_ that something twisted in Aron’s chest. “I’m yours, too,” Minhyun said, seemingly intent to make Aron’s sudden inability to breathe worse. “You can talk to me.”

Aron laughed at that. “I’ve told you like everything going on in my entire life.”

“That’s not true,” Minhyun said, though not unkindly, and Aron didn’t really have a response to that, so he changed the subject.

\--

Minhyun’s words had followed Aron the past few days. He still thought Minhyun was wrong, and that he was an open book more often than he should be, but Aron had had a lot on his mind recently. It had been forever since he'd even hung out with Jonghyun when they didn't have work spread out between them. 

With how busy Jonghyun was these days, Aron expected to have to wheedle him into agreeing to a pizza night, but within seconds of Aron texting him, Jonghyun sent back a thumbs up.

Now, here they were, ignoring the leather couch of their favorite family room in favor of the carpeted floor, in t-shirts and shorts and socks and with a pizza box between them. This was something they’d done a lot over the years, and it was a testament to how much their lives had changed that they now did it under original oil paintings and in a room brimming with history.

Conversation had tapered off in a way it normally didn’t, and Aron was trying to hide that it was his own fault by being aggressively into his slice of pepperoni pizza. He kept messing things up because he’d lead conversation unconsciously toward a story he wanted to tell, only to realize that the story involved Minhyun, who Jonghyun did not know Aron talked to. It wasn’t like Aron had to keep Minhyun a secret, but telling Jonghyun—telling anyone—felt wrong.

Jonghyun, for his part, seemed off too, but he might have just been tired. Aron still didn’t know what he’d been up to, and this night seemed as good as any to find out, so he threw out a “so what have you been doing that’s got you so busy all the time?” that sounded so forcibly casual that he nearly winced.

“They let me take the Pennsylvania binder,” Jonghyun said. Something sharp gleamed in his eyes. “I’m not the only one working from it, of course, but I’m trying to figure out what districts are worth targeting for ads and—”

“What are you talking about?” Aron interrupted. “What binder?”

“Oh, they’ve got binders for all the states and—”

“Who?”

“The campaign? My job?” Now Jonghyun seemed thrown off. “Aron, you did know I was working for the campaign, right?”

No. No, Aron had not known that, but now that he did, it made an exorbitant amount of sense. Jonghyun had graduated with a political science degree. The step forward for him would have been to work in the campaign of some smalltime politician he believed in, but the chance of doing so when Jonghyun’s mere presence meant presidential endorsement was a solid zero.

“When did that start?” he asked numbly.

“Back in September.” Jonghyun was watching him, all concerned and shit like Aron was the one to be concerned about right now. “Did you really not know?”

Aron did not like this. Jonghyun was meant to be working on a tiny campaign where if he messed up, it sucked, but it wouldn’t have gigantic ramifications. Jonghyun was supposed to be working somewhere where no one knew his name, where the entire fucking country wasn’t ready to tear him apart at any moment.

With less than a year until the election now, Richard’s attacks were only growing worse. This was going to get ugly. Likely uglier than it had four years ago, and that had done such a great job in sending Aron spiraling that Eunhye had once suggested he back off. Aron hadn’t, but still. That didn’t mean Jonghyun should throw himself straight into the fire when he knew what they’d say about him.

“You never told me,” Aron accused. He had reasonable cause to be angry about this.

Jonghyun was frowning. “It’s not like it’s been that easy to talk to you,” he said. “You’re gone all the time, and when you are around, you’re on your phone—” Aron went to protest, but Jonghyun forged on, “and when someone calls you out on it, you freak out on them.”

“I do not—”

“ _And_ you’ve not only been ignoring all my texts, but you only ever answer Dasol in the group chat, and at this point even she’s been asking me what happened between you and me—”

“Nothing happened.”

“That’s what I thought until you barely spoke to me for a month.”

And Aron expected anger, but this time, all he got was exhaustion. He'd already burned out. "I was worried for you," he said. "And--you have to understand it's not easy for me to watch them choose you over me."

"What?" Jonghyun asked.

"They didn't even offer me a job on the campaign."

There was dawning horror on Jonghyun's face, and somehow, that made everything sting worse. Aron stood up so quickly he nearly knocked his paper plate to the floor. 

"It's fine," he said immediately, when Jonghyun stood too. "Really. But I can't--this isn't--not tonight," he finally managed. 

It felt strangely good to ignore Jonghyun's "Aron--" and leave.

At least, it felt good until the creeping loneliness caught up. Until he looked around his room and saw all its brimming history, and realized he was three years into this and what did he even have to show for it? 

It was that final thought that convinced him to pull out his phone and finally cash in on that 'friends' label he and Minhyun had been throwing around recently. 

The groggy “yeoboseyo?” from the other end told Aron that Minhyun had not looked at who was calling. Aron checked the time; it was barely eight a.m. there.

“Did I wake you?” Aron asked.

“No,” Minhyun rasped.

“Liar.”

“Are you okay?” Minhyun asked. There were muffled sounds on his end, likely him switching to a more comfortable position.

It was easier to imagine Minhyun trying to wake himself up to talk to Aron than to answer Minhyun's question. "I just realized I send you selfies from bed all the time, but you never send any back."

“If you tell me what happened, I’ll send you one.” 

“Bribing me with your handsome face, Your Highness?” Aron asked. “Better be careful, or I’ll fall in love with you.”

“You asked for it,” Minhyun murmured. “Now talk.”

Aron meant to say no, to tell Minhyun to sleep because for once, he had been, and Aron had ruined it, but the word stuck in his lungs. “It was stupid.”

There was some rustling on Minhyun’s end. As Aron was collapsed on his bed, curled toward his window, he imagined Minhyun across the entire damn world, facing him in the same position. Mirror images, thousands of miles apart.

“You should tell me anyway,” Minhyun said.

Aron drew in a shuddery breath, and what came out next was the mishmash of everything in his head. It was a series of bad explanations, longwinded and messy, and Aron would be embarrassed later over it, because he normally only liked to speak about stuff he knew how to word, and this decidedly was not that.

It wasn’t that Aron thought he was bad at what he did. Oftentimes, people called him great. He just wasn’t sure if he was good enough.

And then there was Jonghyun.

Minhyun was quiet for a long time after Aron spoke. Worst-case scenarios played through Aron’s head. He was the son of the President of the United States, and he was complaining. He’d seen enough articles that threw the word ‘entitled’ in his direction to wonder if there was truth to it. Or Minhyun had fallen back asleep, and Aron had been talking to no one, which was possibly less mortifying than if Minhyun was still awake.

“Speaking not as your friend but as someone whose position is similar,” Minhyun started. “I—”

“Think I’m being ridiculous?”

“No,” Minhyun said. “I think you _are_ great at what you do. When you speak, it’s hard to look away from you. But even if that wasn't true, you'd still be good enough.”

And because apparently Aron wanted to do the most to embarrass himself tonight, tears gathered in his eyes. He waited so long to blink that they skipped running down his cheeks and instead fell straight to his bedsheets.

“The first time I saw you in Rio, you made your mother laugh,” Minhyun said. “And each time after, you were smiling and talking to people, and by the time you introduced yourself to me, I was convinced that if someone like you even got near me, I’d burst into flames. I thought that I’d just figured out how to make myself seem fine again, and you were out there living in a world I would never be able to reach.”

“So you do remember Rio,” Aron managed.

“I remember you.”

Before Aron could figure out what possibly to say to that, someone knocked on his door. Kahi was the only person who often did that, usually when he was running late to something, so hearing it now nearly made him throw his phone across the room, but then Jonghyun poked his head inside.

Aron slowly lowered his phone. Normally Jonghyun just barged in.

“Were you talking to someone?” Technically, Aron was still talking to someone. Someone who he’d never told Jonghyun about. Fuck.

“Um,” Aron said. “Give me a minute.”

He said a quick goodbye to Minhyun, and did his best to elicit a promise from him that he’d go back to sleep. It wasn’t the most subtle of ways to end a call, particularly because no one from their time zone would be sleeping right now, but it was the best Aron could do. His conversation with Minhyun had left him rubbed raw.

“That wasn’t Dasol,” Jonghyun said.

“I have other friends,” Aron defended.

Jonghyun seemed hurt then, and Aron’s guilt took flight. “I needed to work through some stuff. I mean, obviously. And I’ve been talking to Minhyun a lot, and I thought he wouldn’t mind, and he—”

“Minhyun?” Jonghyun interrupted. “As in…”

“Yeah. That Minhyun.” Aron’s face was burning like wildfire, and he didn’t even have a reason for it.

“ _He’s_ who you’ve been talking to constantly?” Jonghyun’s amount of shock seemed almost disproportionate, even considering Aron and Minhyun’s past.

“I got his number so we can coordinate being friends,” Aron defended. “But now we just, talk, I guess. Sometimes.”

“Okay.” Jonghyun did the thing where he blinked a few times in silence, recalibrating things in his head. Aron hardly thought this was worthy of recalibration, but apparently Jonghyun thought otherwise. “Did you…have a good talk?” His words were tentative, and Aron hated it.

“I’m not mad at you,” Aron blurted out. “I mean, Jesus, Jonghyun. Sit down.”

And with that, the tension at least faded, and Jonghyun sat.

Only once Jonghyun left did Aron realize he'd gotten a message from Minhyun. He'd entirely forgotten about it.

  
  


HRH Prince 🙃

As promised

  
  
  


_Oh._

And something changed after that. Not only because Jonghyun started showing up in Aron's room again, or that Aron began to drag Jonghyun outside whenever he felt he'd been working too hard, but also between Aron and Minhyun. Jonghyun knew now, so Aron chatted with Minhyun more often outside of his own room. Sometimes Jonghyun even joined in their conversations. But that wasn't it either.

They had established that they were friends before all this, but it was like Aron actually confiding in Minhyun opened things up for Minhyun to do the same. It didn't come out in one go, not like with Aron, but Minhyun began to make casual asides to the less glamorous aspects of his life and family. When Aron ribbed Minhyun once more for his love of _Great Expectations_ , Minhyun admitted that he'd worked directly with publicists to come up with that answer.

 _It is a book I like_ , he’d said. _But it was fourth on the list I gave them._

Minhyun never even implied that such things bothered him, but they made Aron surprisingly angry. He'd been lucky enough to see both sides of Minhyun: the mask he put on for the public, and the person beneath it, and he wished Minhyun could show the world more of himself. 

He was South Korea’s prince charming, the youngest one, the most beautiful one, and fuck, he was so much more than that.

Minhyun was weird laughter, and constant hilarious stories because he failed at any and every sport he had ever tried. He was long rants about books he’d been reading and shows he’d been watching that went on and on until Aron threatened to block him. He was his constant insomnia, his weird liking of bugs, his stories about his super weird best friend Mingi, who spent his time traveling the world and helping with entire lists of charities and trying his hardest to make the world a better place.

He was all that, and more, and once upon a time Minhyun might have thought that Aron could set him on fire, but now Aron worried that Minhyun might do the same to him.


	4. Chapter 4

The White House New Year’s Party took place in one of the great halls. Headed by the trio, they invited other children of politicians and public figures, along with B-list celebrities and the children of A-list celebrities, and the long, long list of other acquaintances they’d made over the past few years. It was an excuse to have a fucking great time and drink and dance and walk away from it all with a couple million dollars donated to a nonprofit they believed in. Aron had looked forward to it since they’d started planning this year’s.

Jonghyun had been the one who added Minhyun to the invitation list, but Aron hadn’t minded, though he had made sure to also add Mingi’s name. This was an opportunity for Aron to finally meet Minhyun’s best friend, who Aron struggled to understand through Minhyun’s stories.

Like every year, the first partygoers to arrive were the least important ones. White House interns and the children of new politicians who hadn’t been playing these games for too long, mainly. They hung out in awkward clumps as Aron, Jonghyun, and Dasol raced around doing last-minute preparations and surveying their successful decorations.

The entertainment for the night was this British indie-rocker who hadn't truly gotten started yet, so the party didn’t have much character. Right now, it was a lot of greeting people and meeting people and _why don’t you have a drink, let’s get you a drink_. 

Aron was just settling into a conversation with Jonghyun and Dasol, freed from his hosting duties as more people began to arrive and the party began to flow without their immediate assistance—the music growing louder, the conversation rising above it, a few people beginning to dance—when Dasol stopped mid-sentence and went, “Oh, he looks so lost.”

Aron turned, and there were Minhyun and Mingi, who must have just arrived for they still had their coats on. For all they had seen of each other through their phone screens recently, it still was different to see Minhyun in person once again. Aron had not totally processed it before Dasol was approaching them.

Minhyun did look lost, him and Mingi hovering together, but he smiled warmly at Dasol, his eyes disappearing into the smile in a way that made Aron’s chest tighten. Dasol kissed his cheek, and it turned his entire face scarlet. Aron was laughing by the time he reached him.

Minhyun was still staring after Dasol, who had already returned to loop an arm through Jonghyun’s. Jonghyun gave Minhyun a little wave.

“Don’t go getting a crush now,” Aron said. Minhyun blinked a whole bunch of times. “You had your chance already.”

“I wasn’t—” Minhyun began to protest.

“Jesus, your face is red,” Aron went on. “You need to reconsider the not-dating thing if this is what you get like. Clearly you’re repressed, or something.”

Minhyun had lost his handle on his words, stumbling through something that Aron got no meaning out of, and it was such a funny, giddy feeling to watch him stumble that Aron could only come up with ways to make it worse. “Lost your voice? I could kiss you too. Maybe that’ll bring it back.”

Minhyun went even redder, to Aron’s delight. But before Aron could antagonize him further, Minhyun punched him hard in the shoulder. Aron yelped.

“You deserved that,” Minhyun said crossly, as Aron rubbed the spot. Aron had forgotten how pleasing his voice was without a crackly phone speaker in between them.

“I’m allowed to laugh over you acting like you just had your first kiss. What, never been kissed by a pretty girl before?”

“I thought she was dating Jonghyun.”

Aron threw up his hands. “Last year they kissed right at midnight, and I was all thrilled for them because I thought it meant they figured their shit out, then Dasol turned around and fucking kissed me too. Jonghyun thought it was hilarious.”

Minhyun laughed. His face had finally gone back to normal, or at least what passed for it under the dimmed lights. “I’m glad I’m not the only one plagued by a sibling I’ll never understand.”

“I still think you should have invited Sujin.”

“Do remember that I told you that you were welcome to ask her here yourself.”

“You greatly underestimate how afraid of your sister I am.” As Aron finished, someone bumped into him. Aron stumbled forward, bracing himself, but then Minhyun was there. Aron clutched at Minhyun’s arms for balance, and pressed his cheek against Minhyun’s neck. A laugh snuck its way out of him.

“Do you ever plan to stop falling on me?” Minhyun asked, but he didn’t manage to sound cross.

“I’m not even clumsy!” Aron protested. Minhyun’s arms had snaked around him to hold him close. Heat rose from Minhyun’s body. A bead of sweat ran down Aron’s neck, and suddenly, suddenly this was less comfortable. Suddenly, Aron could hardly breathe.

He pushed himself back almost at the same speed he’d fallen forward. “You don’t have a drink yet,” he diverted. “Let’s fix that—and holy shit, I haven’t even met Mingi yet.” Except when Aron turned, Mingi had disappeared. “Oh.”

“He’s fine,” Minhyun said. “He’ll show back up at some point, now with a dozen new friends.”

Aron tried to find Mingi still, but the trickle of people arriving had become a torrent, and the once sparse room was now dense with people talking and dancing and drinking. The neon lights Jonghyun had thought up were flashing over the crowds. Aron caught flashes of faces he recognized and many he didn’t.

He hadn’t realized he’d started forward with some speed until Minhyun stopped him by grabbing his elbow. “I don’t drink,” he said.

Aron couldn’t believe he’d forgotten that. “Not even here? _Why?_ ”

It was a sign of how actually out of place Minhyun must have felt that he actually rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I can’t hold it well,” he admitted.

If he thought that would get Aron to back off, he was sorely mistaken. “Tonight’s a good night then.”

“What?”

“This is my party,” Aron said. “Our party. I know who is here, and who we don’t invite. The press isn’t allowed inside, it’s dark, and everyone here is important enough that absolutely no one cares what you do.”

He could tell by the sharp flit of Minhyun’s eyes to his that Aron had captured the crux of Minhyun’s holding out, and that it had surprised him.

“You’re not the only one here with a reputation to uphold, Your Highness.” Aron grinned at him, and Minhyun tentatively returned it. “Let yourself have a good time.”

“Okay,” Minhyun said, and even though he’d been leading up to acquiescence, it still surprised Aron, who laughed and slapped Minhyun on the back before leading him off into the party.

Though Aron did not spend the entire night with Minhyun—there were way too many old friends and new friends and acquaintances and people who made eyes at him from across the dancing throngs of people for that—he often spotted him. Minhyun did loosen up considerably after a single drink—and to Aron’s amusement, he was pretty sure Minhyun stopped after only one—so he adapted more easily to the party. Despite Mingi’s early departure, he and Minhyun mainly stuck together.

Aron flitted between groups of people, enjoying how he could strike up conversation with nearly anyone and balking the few times he entered something he did not want to be a part of. The conversation was loud, the music was louder, a mix of newly popular songs and the songs distinctly nostalgic to people their age. The ones you heard and they threw you back to middle school in the best of ways, but also not at all, because everything about being here was so much better than middle school-you could have ever pictured.

Aron was pleasantly buzzed, to the point where a smile was on his lips more often than not, and when he turned his head too quickly, the world blurred at its edges. The party was dancing and loud laughter and beautiful people who all knew his name, who all were down for another drink or a dance or to yell something between one another.

It was a good time, only growing better as midnight approached. Soon, the countdown to midnight would start.

For the first time in a while, Aron spotted Minhyun standing with Mingi and Jonghyun, though almost immediately the rush of people obscured them from view. Aron made his way over anyway.

Mingi spotted him first. He was clearly the drunkest of the three, swaying slightly on his feet in a way that went against the beat of the music, though Jonghyun was sometimes devilishly good at hiding his own intoxication.

Minhyun was also swaying with the music, though he seemed to not entirely know what to do with his own limbs, and when he raised his eyes at Mingi’s “Aron!” A smile lit up his face so damn brightly that Aron could only blink back at him.

Then Mingi’s arm was slung around his shoulder, and a solid amount of weight toppled against him. In the time it took to regain his balance, Minhyun must have capped that smile. Aron missed it.

“Aron,” Mingi said. “Did you know Jonghyun can dance?” He phrased it very honestly, like he thought Aron might genuinely be unaware.

“You were dancing?” he asked Jonghyun. Normally, Jonghyun got a bit shy, but the air tonight was alive with the same sort of pulsing energy and anonymity.

“We were gonna teach Minhyun, but he’s hopeless.”

Mingi sighed right in Aron’s ear. “I tried to warn you. He tries to blame his classes but it’s really just him.”

“You try to bend after years of _posture classes_ ,” Minhyun said peevishly, and the absurdity of such a concept didn’t seem to occur to him, even as Aron burst out laughing.

“You can’t be serious,” Aron said.

“I really can’t do it! I’ve never even heard these songs.”

“You don’t have to know the song to—” Mingi started, but Aron interrupted him, blurting out, “I can teach you.”

“’Cause you’re _so good_ at dancing,” Jonghyun said.

“Wow, thanks, asshole—"

“Okay,” Minhyun said. His voice was quiet, but it ricocheted through Aron. He spun around. Minhyun’s gaze was so intense Aron could barely stand under it.

“Okay?” he repeated dumbly.

“So? Tell me what to do.”

“Oh! Right,” Aron said. “Right. Well. It’s in the hips. You have to move your hips.” Minhyun gave a tentative sway. “Jesus, not like that. Loosen up before you crack in half or something.”

He had not realized that he’d removed himself from Mingi and approached Minhyun, but now he was in touching range. Aron slid his hands around Minhyun’s hips, which had the exact opposite effect.

“Loosen up, I said! That is not loosening.” Aron gave his hipbone a small squeeze. Minhyun jumped. “C’mon, you know how to _waltz_. You can do this.”

Minhyun rolled his eyes at the jab, which at least stopped him from staring so intensely at Aron. “I don’t even like waltzing,” he grumbled. “It’s just _proper_.”

“And here it is proper to at least kind-of move _with_ the music, and you’re at, like, middle schooler at his first dance level right now so—”

“That means nothing to me.”

Aron waved a hand, then returned it back to Minhyun’s hip. Vaguely, he realized Minhyun had placed his hands on Aron’s shoulders, which made this extra ridiculous. “Middle school dance. Bunch of horny kids that spend half the night staring awkwardly at each other and the other half grinding ‘cause they think it’s sexy.”

Minhyun made a face at Aron’s description.

“Exactly. It’s the lowest of the low, so you _have_ to be better than that. C’mon, try again. Watch me do it.”

After several more minutes of trying, Minhyun hadn’t much improved, and their friends had abandoned them for more fun excursions, but Aron didn’t mind. This was nice, in a supremely awkward way. Aron’s hands on Minhyun’s hips. Their eye contact. The weird distance between them because they were touching but not dancing together. These were not songs for slow dancing. No one put much effort into being coy.

For a long time, neither spoke. It was Minhyun who broke the spell. “The countdown is going to start soon,” he murmured.

Aron swung his head toward the raised platform. Minhyun was right; Aron could see the people beginning to gather. “Oh, Goddammit, I’ve been spending so much time with you, I haven’t even found someone to kiss.” There was something hilarious about that, and then Aron was laughing. He’d kissed a girl as midnight struck every year at this party, and this year, he wasn’t going to, because he’d gotten distracted by Minhyun. “Just hide me from Dasol,” he said. “I can’t start two years in a row by kissing her.”

“Is it that bad?” Minhyun asked.

“Of course not, she’s amazing. But one day she and Jonghyun are gonna admit they’re, I don’t know, that they’ve got joint custody over that lizard or something, and I’ll have to live with knowing for two years in a row I—”

“Not that.” Minhyun said through his teeth. He sounded almost annoyed. “Not kissing a girl at midnight. Is it that bad?” He was staring at Aron like he wanted something, but Aron didn’t know what to give him.

“There you two are!” Suddenly Dasol was there, grabbing them by the arms, and saving Aron from having to answer. Aron greeted her, but Minhyun was quiet. Was he still shy from the kiss earlier? “I thought I wouldn’t find you in time,” she said, and dragged them both off toward the stage.

The rest of their group, Mingi included, were already there. Aron greeted them, hollering over the noise rising from the crowd. Within the time Aron had last seen him, Jonghyun had gained a pile of sparkly streamers, wrapped around his shoulders like a shawl. Aron figured it was Dasol’s work until Mingi whipped a silver one out and put it on Minhyun, who tried to shy away but only laughed when he failed, and Mingi made a whole show of draping the metallic streamer around his neck. (“To celebrate you getting that royal stick out of your ass for once”)

Before Mingi could adorn Aron in a similar fashion, the entertainer called for the crowd’s attention, and then within minutes, the countdown was starting. Minhyun’s hand found its way around Aron’s waist, and during such an electric moment, the whole crowd united, Aron surrounded by all the people he cared about most, it still managed to send a spark through him. Aron’s happiness was a wild thing within his chest.

The New Year did not start with a kiss, but Dasol threw her arms around him into such a tight hug he nearly wrenched forward. It took Jonghyun’s help to keep upright, since Dasol seemed willing to send them both to the floor. Jonghyun was laughing, and Dasol was too, and Aron only realized he had joined in when he heard his own voice.

It had been a while since they’d had a moment like this, and Aron found himself clinging on. The three of them had been thrown into this whole mess together, and no one else in the world could understand Aron’s position as well as them. Aron hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed them recently.

 _We’re older this time_ , Jonghyun had told him on the night he’d come to Aron’s room. _We can share it between the three of us, and it doesn’t make you any less important. It’s too much of a burden for you alone_.

Aron truly was lucky to have friends like them.

By the time Aron turned to wish Minhyun a happy new year, he was gone, lost in the crush of celebrating bodies.

“Did you see where Minhyun went?” Aron yelled to Mingi, who, true to what Minhyun had said, was in voracious conversation with basically everyone.

“What?”

“Minhyun!"

Mingi shrugged, but Aron didn’t know whether that meant he didn’t know or hadn’t heard. But with the crowd as thick as it was and the fact that trying to stand on his tiptoes to look better nearly sent him sprawling, Aron had no idea how to find Minhyun, so he let himself fall back into the festivities instead.

It wasn’t until Aron was standing by the large windows that overlooked the gardens that he saw Minhyun again. Or rather, he saw a ghostly, distorted figure through the tinted glass, illuminated only by the night lights of the garden, and knew it was Minhyun.

How long had he been out there? Wasn’t he freezing?

Swift concern had Aron excusing himself and hurrying outside, toward where Minhyun stood under a linden tree, with freshly fallen snowflakes in his hair, and his eyes tilted skyward. He looked so perfect, it could have been a portrait.

“Minhyun?” Aron called out, and the moment shattered as Minhyun startled.

His lips quirked up into this strange smile, and he went, “hi, Aron,” in this little voice.

“What the hell are you doing?” Aron was closer now, close enough to see that Minhyun was trembling lightly. It was fucking freezing outside. “How long have you been out here? You’ll get hypothermia or something.”

“It’s colder back home,” Minhyun said.

“You’re literally shivering.”

“I like watching the stars sometimes. I know a lot of the constellations.”

“In the fucking snow?”

Minhyun sighed heavily at that. “There’s not much to see tonight,” he agreed, and tilted his eyes back up. The sky above them was spilling over with snowflakes, and the White House’s many outdoor lights made them bright white specks in the sky. There was no chance of seeing the stars through them.

Aron’s initial goal had been to grab Minhyun and haul him back inside, because the ‘oh Korean winters are worse’ was bullshit, and Minhyun was going to get sick, but Aron didn’t think Minhyun would go with him. So instead, Aron stuffed his frozen fingers into his pockets. “I’ll join you,” he said. Minhyun did not protest.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Aron had never handled the cold well, and now it had him trembling, but he did his best to shake silently. Minhyun was still watching the sky.

When he finally did speak, Aron thought he misheard.

“I want more than this,” Minhyun said.

“What?”

Now Minhyun looked Aron straight in the eyes. He had snowflakes caught in his eyelashes. “That’s my problem,” he said. “That’s always my problem. I want more from everything, and everyone.” He laughed humorlessly, then let the sound fade into the night. “I even want more from the sky.”

“Do you want more from me?”

Minhyun scoffed. “Especially from you.” 

“I’ll give you it,” Aron said without thinking, then amended, “what I can.” Even though privately, he thought that there was little he wouldn’t find a way to give Minhyun.

“I almost did something stupid,” Minhyun said. “Before.” He was staring at Aron now.

“You’re doing something stupid by being out in the snow.” Aron leaned into Minhyun, so he could at least steal some of his warmth. They trembled against each other. Neither was dressed for the cold.

“But this won’t matter tomorrow. The other would.” Minhyun pulled away so suddenly, Aron staggered to catch his balance. Minhyun didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were desperate. “You get tired of it too, how everything you do reflects on your family, and the country.”

“You know I do.” And Aron had wondered when they’d truly talk about this, when Minhyun would stop only referencing the ways his family and his position infringed on who he was and instead talk about how it hurt him, but he hadn’t expected it to happen now, or here.

“There’s an end to it for you. In four years, who cares what you do. You won’t be here anymore.” Minhyun cast his arms out in a gesture grand enough to encompass the White House. “I will live and die in those palace walls.” Minhyun pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“How can I do something stupid when I know that?” Minhyun asked. “It’s not even acceptable for me to not go on dates, but I keep wanting to date the people I can’t.”

Aron was just sober enough to tell that his inability to keep up with Minhyun wasn’t entirely his own fault. “You could have anyone,” he said. “You’re…you. Anyone would want to be with you.”

“But I can’t date anyone.”

“Sujin married a normal person,” Aron said. “I know—I know you say you’re not a rebel, but I think you’re more of one than you think. You could marry who you want too.”

“Can you really not think of any reason why I couldn’t be with who I want? Why I’m different than Sujin?”

Aron was stuck trying to figure out why someone _wouldn’t_ want to be with Minhyun. Who wasn’t into the fairytale prince thing? “I don’t know.”

“You told me this is the place to do stupid things,” Minhyun said. “If I do something, will you forget about it tomorrow? Let me do it once, and then I’ll stop wanting everything I’m not allowed to have.”

And Aron still didn’t understand, but Minhyun’s eyes were so pleading, he found himself nodding anyway. Anything Minhyun wanted, Aron would give him.

“Do it,” Aron said, when Minhyun still did nothing.

And over the next few days, Aron would think about this conversation over and over again, trying to recall every detail, and unable to comprehend how it possibly surprised him so much that Minhyun surged forward and covered Aron’s mouth with his own. Both of his hands cupped Aron’s face, and he stroked his fingers down Aron’s cheek like he was something precious, even as his lips were harsh and demanding. He kissed Aron like he wanted to take everything from him, and Aron was pliant against him, willing to give Minhyun anything and everything he asked for.

Minhyun’s tongue ran over his bottom lip, and Aron gasped and clutched at the material of his shirt. His heart raced. The kisses tasted like alcohol but also something sweet, and all Aron wanted was to kiss Minhyun again.

But Minhyun was scrambling backward, and before Aron managed more than a “wait—” he was running as quickly as he could through the snow and disappearing around the corner.

Aron raised a shaking hand and touched his tingling lips, now alone under the weeping linden tree.

\--

The thing about the kiss was that Aron could not stop thinking about it.

The thing about the kiss was that Aron didn’t know how he could possibly be so stupid. How he hadn’t seen it coming. How he’d let Minhyun _leave_.

The thing about the kiss was that Aron didn't have time to think about it. There was ample to work to be done with only eight months until the election, and Aron had been putting a lot of thought into what Jonghyun had asked him: what role did he _want_ to have in the campaign? He’d gotten more outspoken about writing drafts for speeches, instead of massively editing the press team’s drafts. He was still doing swimming practices and appearances, and he'd written an editorial that appeared in the New York Times. Aron, Jonghyun, and Dasol had been spending more time together, too, even outside of work.

But no matter what Aron worked on or how busy he got, underneath the surface on a constant loop, the prince of Korea was caressing Aron’s face and kissing him under a linden tree as the snow fell thick in the gardens of the White House. So fucking much for forgetting.

Minhyun had not responded to any of Aron’s texts or answered any of his calls since he’d left Aron under that tree. Aron found himself oscillating between extreme anger and an understanding that pissed him off even worse than Minhyun’s hasty escape.

He wanted nothing more than to let his own anger to consume him, to stop wanting Minhyun to text, or call. To stop trying. Or, hell, for him to be able to text Minhyun and agree that they should forget it all happened, agree that Minhyun should play the role of the perfect prince with no substance underneath, the one Aron had let himself believe for so fucking long.

Prince Minhyun, a cardboard cutout of a person because he feared being imperfect even around his family. Prince Minhyun, a seemingly unstoppable robot because his every move impacted the legacy of a royal family who’d lived for hundreds of years. Aron had never totally understood how Minhyun and Mingi’s friendship worked, but now it was all too clear. Mingi might be one of the few people in the entire world charismatic enough to draw everyone’s attention off Minhyun for a while. Minhyun had meant it when he said he wasn’t a rebel. He struggled enough to just find a minute to breathe.

But that was too bad. Too bad because Aron knew how much of Minhyun was hidden behind his façade. Too bad because Aron couldn’t fucking close his eyes without feeling Minhyun’s lips against his own, and that wasn’t acceptable. If Minhyun was going to make Aron intensely, intensely attracted to him, he was going to take some fucking responsibility for it.

And Aron missed him. Immensely.

In the end, it was his old mistakes that gave him an opportunity: part of the agreement between the White House and the Korean crown after Aron and Minhyun had destroyed seventy-five grand worth of buttercream was that Minhyun would attend a state dinner in the White House. Once, the third week of January had seemed lightyears away. Now that it was here, Aron felt lightyears different from the man he’d been when he first heard about it.

Aron, Jonghyun, and Dasol would all be in attendance, and so would Minhyun.

With that in mind, Aron cornered Dasol as she finished readying herself for the dinner. Aron had already dressed. “I need your help,” he muttered.

“That’s a bad sign,” she said brightly. “What goes on?”

“I need to get Minhyun alone,” he said quietly.

“Isn’t he only here so you two can keep on being friends?” Dasol asked absently. She was messing with her hair, mussing it on one side and peering at it in a mirror. “You’re not going to, like, cause another international incident, right?”

“If I can’t get him alone, I will.”

“Are you going to murder him?”

“No!”

“Are you sure? Because you seem pretty pissed off right now. Actually, for the past couple weeks. Jonghyun’s been losing his mind trying to figure out what’s up.”

Aron looked in her eyes and prepared to tell her that absolutely nothing happened, he just needed to talk to Minhyun, then blurted out, “Minhyun kissed me.”

“Shit, really?” Dasol asked. “How’d you manage to mess it up after mooning over him for months? Not to mention how you were, like, Draco Malfoy-level obsessed with him for years.”

“I did not mess it up!” Aron squawked. “Or moon!” He barely managed to prevent an equally offended _‘obsessed?’_ from leaving his mouth. There it was again, the word that started all of this. Aron could have laughed.

“So you two are the epitome of a healthy relationship right now, are you? Pretty sure I saw somewhere that he went on a date with that model again.”

“Stop,” Aron grumbled. Minhyun _had_ gone on a date with a model, and it had pissed Aron off even worse, because it hadn't even been Songhee. “You don’t get to say shit to me when you and Jonghyun are the way you are.”

“Jonghyun and me are happy,” Dasol corrected. “I think that’s a lot healthier than we’d be if the tabloids were running pieces about who cheated on who every time he talked to a woman or I looked at a man.”

“They already do that.” But even as Aron was protesting, he also understood. It was different, when reporters pulled from thin air versus when they had a tiny piece of you and pulled hard. “Minhyun told me to forget it happened.”

“I hope you told him to shove _that idea_ up his ass.”

Aron managed a weak laugh.

“Seriously, though,” Dasol said. “You two need to both stop trying to make the whole world happy for a minute. Whatever you do, do it for each other, and yourselves. And tell him it’s healthy to hide shit from your family every once in a while.”

“Does that mean you’ll help?” Aron asked.

Dasol knocked him in the shoulder for having to ask.

The state dinner was excruciating. If not seeing Minhyun had been hard, then seeing him only for Minhyun to ignore his existence was impossible. Aron was tempted to remind him that they were friends now, but the thought of Minhyun pretending to be his friend hurt even worse.

Aron vibrated with the need to go confront Minhyun, even if his mind couldn’t entirely fill in what he intended to say. But more than that, Aron was so fucking angry. Minhyun could have handled this five-hundred different ways, and he chose to pretend Aron didn’t exist? _Really?_

It was a huge relief after the dinner, when they returned to socializing and Minhyun did his best to keep an entire room between them at all times, once Dasol caught Aron’s eye and nodded. This was the cue. Dasol quickly marched toward Minhyun while Aron tracked Dongho down.

“I need your help,” he hissed, grabbing Dongho’s shoulder. Dongho’s hand jumped to his gun, and while he didn’t draw it, he kept his palm on it.

“Where’s the threat?” he asked, deadly serious.

“Jesus, no, not like that,” Aron said. “I need your help getting Minhyun alone. So I can talk to him.”

“Minhyun?”

“The prince. Of Korea.”

“I’ll talk to his security—”

“No!” Aron burst out, then quieted. God, he was going to go mad. “ _Alone_ ,” he repeated. “Will you watch the door if I take him across the hall?”

Dongho eyed him uncertainly, but finally nodded. “Only for a few minutes,” he said.

“Perfect! Thank you! Meet me there in three minutes.” Aron spun around with that and stalked over to where Dasol had Minhyun trapped in what seemed to be a conversation he desperately wanted to leave but was pinned to by his own politeness. As Aron approached, his speed a little too purposeful to be entirely casual, he could hear Dasol aggressively talking at Minhyun.

“Excuse me,” Aron said, pushing between them. “Hi.” He looked Minhyun dead in the eyes. Though his words had been polite, Aron’s tone was curt. After weeks of vividly imagining Minhyun’s lips on his, it was hard to look anywhere but.

Even as Minhyun’s smile faltered and his eyes darted away as though looking for an escape, he still managed to look so beautiful that Aron’s breath caught in his chest. Aron needed him alone right now.

“Hi,” he said again, even though Minhyun had said nothing, then grabbed him by the shoulder and started hauling him toward the door. “We need to talk.”

Thankfully, the guests were distracted enough that they didn’t notice Aron frog-marching a member of the crown out of the banquet hall and into the smaller sitting room beside it. Dongho was already by the door. They wouldn’t be disturbed.

“What are you _doing?”_ Minhyun had the gall to demand, and Aron tightened his grip on Minhyun’s tie.

“Shut up. Oh my god, shut up.” He shoved Minhyun inside and let the door slam shut behind them. Aron had not gone in knowing exactly what to say to Minhyun--some weird mash of our-positions-are-important-but-we're-important-outside-of-them-too and fuck-you-and-everything-you-stand-for but now that Aron was finally alone where he didn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing, Aron didn’t think he needed many words at all.

“Fuck forgetting,” he said, then grabbed Minhyun by the neck and shoved their mouths together.

For a moment, it was so fucking good, getting another taste of this infuriating prince, this dork, the one who’d nearly managed to ghost him only to be pulled back into Aron’s circle by the obligations made when they’d smashed into a cake together.

Then, Aron became more aware. Minhyun’s mouth had dropped open, but not in an inviting way, instead slack and unmoving. His hands were flat on Aron’s chest, possibly about to shove him away, and maybe Aron had been wrong about this. Maybe Aron had everything wrong.

The helium that had filled his chest turned to lead, but Minhyun didn’t let Aron pull away. As soon as he tried, Minhyun’s fingers wrapped around Aron’s lapel to draw him closer again, his lips as aggressive as Aron’s had been. It was a fierce kiss, one that had Aron flashing hot all over and shoving Minhyun back until he was pressed against a small table. Aron gave into the temptation of running his fingers through Minhyun’s hair, of cupping his jaw, of gripping his neck as their mouths moved together. It was a fucking fraction of the things he’d been imagining over the past weeks, and it was all so fucking good.

Minhyun pulled back first, his lips wet and parted so he could take these uneven, gasping breaths, his hair a mess, his clothes askew, and fuck, Aron could look at him forever.

“Wait,” Minhyun said faintly, as though he’d heard Aron’s thoughts of forever, then repeated it more strongly. “Wait.”

 _“What?”_ Aron didn’t mean for it to come out as sharp as it did.

“Is this—isn’t this too fast? Shouldn’t we…I don’t know… get dinner first?”

“We just ate.” Now Aron was glaring, one hand on Minhyun’s waist. Minhyun was gripping the edge of the table.

“Right,” Minhyun said and blinked rapidly. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Aron’s lips.

“Any more complaints?”

“We haven’t…talked about anything.” Minhyun winced at his own words.

“Okay, we’ll talk” Aron said, and his voice was dangerous now. “You kissed me and fucking ghosted me. Stood there and said all that stuff about wanting more from me, then asked me to forget, and now you’re in my fucking house still ignoring me, after you went on a date with a _girl_ —"

“I’m gay,” Minhyun said, and it wasn’t like _that_ was a fucking shock, but Aron liked that Minhyun had said it. They had talked about so much, and now, now Minhyun was finally saying this too. Minhyun looked him up and down, his tongue wetting his lips. “Holy shit, Aron, I am very fucking gay.”

And Aron had planned to confirm one last time that Minhyun wanted this, but that seemed fucking redundant now. Minhyun was already not standing upright, still against the small table where Aron had pushed him. Aron shakily managed to place the candelabra on the floor before shoving Minhyun back until he sat atop the table.

Minhyun’s legs opened easily, allowing Aron to stand between his thighs, and that was all Aron needed before he was in Minhyun’s space again, kissing and kissing and kissing to make up for all the time they’d lost. All the time he’d spent missing Minhyun. He had not been able to forget, but more than that, he refused to.

Aron ran his hand up Minhyun’s thigh, and Minhyun threw his head back so hard it banged off the painting—an antique oil painting, Aron noticed and nearly dissolved into crazed laughter, of Alexander Hamilton.

Aron planned to swoop in and kiss him again, to kiss Minhyun until Aron felt like he could finally fucking breathe after Minhyun had driven him crazy this past month, but before he could, Dongho rapped on the door. “Time’s up,” he announced.

Aron swore against Minhyun’s lips at the interruption, at how it made the rest of the world to come crushing in. Aron could hear it now: the murmur of voices, the moving bodies as guests said their goodbyes. Minhyun had also grown more alert, but his chest was still heaving. His collar was stretched, the tail of his shirt freed from his pants—Aron didn’t even remember _doing_ that.

Any moment now, someone would look for Aron, or for Minhyun, and find them absent. There would be questions. Curiosity. Things they couldn’t have happen when Aron and Minhyun were making out under a goddamn portrait of a long-dead racist who’d written secret love letters to another man.

_You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility, to steal into my affections without my consent._

Aron swore again and tugged Minhyun to his feet, then immediately regretted it, as that put Minhyun’s super sexy, super messy hair out of Aron’s easy reach. Still, he managed to pat it down, as Minhyun looked everywhere but at him and put his clothes into order. He was muttering in Korean under his breath, something that seemed to rhyme, his cheeks scarlet.

“What are you _doing_?”

“Distracting myself,” Minhyun hissed back, then gestured inelegantly down. Aron did not follow his gaze. Thinking about Minhyun’s dick right now would not help their situation.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Aron said. Finally, Minhyun looked at him. “You stay, like, five hundred feet away from me for the rest of the night, for the love of god.”

Minhyun’s face almost fell, but then it tightened into a challenge. “And?” Aron liked that he could tell Minhyun wasn’t going to let this be their only ‘talk’ before he returned to South Korea. Good thing Aron had no plans of that either.

He gripped Minhyun by the tie again and pulled his so close he could hear Minhyun’s breath hitch. Their lips brushed together as Aron spoke. “Come to my room. Second floor. East wing. Eleven o’clock. Don’t be late. Understand?”

Minhyun tried to nod, but that wasn’t good enough for Aron. “Yes,” Minhyun rasped.

“And if you ghost me again?” Aron went on. “I’ll put you on a fucking no-fly list.”

That was supposed to be equally threatening, but the corner of Minhyun’s lips turned up, and Aron could hear his smartass response before he even began to say it.

“Don’t even try it,” he said. He laughed, and the sound ripped out of him. “Fuck.” He was exhausted suddenly, as though all the anger and heat within him had burnt out at once. Aron still had Minhyun by the tie, and now he used the same grip to lean into him.

Minhyun rested his chin on the top of Aron’s head, and a tension Aron hadn’t even realized had been building over the past month drained out of him.

“I was only going to say we should avoid any more scandals from here out,” Minhyun said into his hair.

“I am going to kill you.”

Dongho banged on the door again, and they sprang apart once more.

“I think you might,” Minhyun said honestly, and they rejoined the dinner.

Aron was pacing. His hands were clasped behind him, so he wouldn’t have the temptation to check the time on his phone, which he had checked under a minute ago.

10:48.

Aron caught his appearance in the mirror. White t-shirt and shorts. He’d draped the jacket of the suit he’d taken off over the chair at his desk. Should he have left it on? What was the dress code when inviting your former enemy-turned-fake-friend-turned-real-friend-turned-????? to your bedroom? Especially when that bedroom was in the White House, and that former enemy was the prince of Korea, and you were pretty sure inviting them to said bedroom meant inviting them over for sex, but you weren’t positive you were on the same page there.

Aron checked the time. 10:49. He flung his phone onto his bed and gripped his short hair in both hands.

Minhyun had promised him, but Aron had also ruined things by collapsing into him at the very end. Now, Aron couldn’t call the emotions surging through him anger. It was there, yes, along with something righteously indignant, but he also _understood_. Minhyun had opened his heart up under that linden tree, and it was so fucking terrifying to kiss your friend.

Even tonight, when Minhyun had clearly been pretty fucking into it, Aron was still terrified.

At exactly 10:54, a soft knock echoed through Aron’s room. He tore the door open, and Minhyun stood on the other side, looking aggressively handsome with his suit jacket nowhere in sight and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Sorry that I’m early,” Minhyun said. It was enough to snap Aron into action and allow Minhyun into his room.

“You found it okay?” Aron asked.

“Dongho was helpful.”

Of course he was. “I’m gonna send him flowers.”

“You wanted to see me that badly?” Minhyun murmured. He traced Aron’s jaw with his fingertips, and a bolt of heat flashed through Aron. He swallowed dryly, unable to carry on the guise that this was any old meeting in Aron’s bedroom in the middle of the night, and reached around Minhyun to lock the door. The movement brought them closer, and the way Minhyun’s eyes ran over Aron was anything but innocent.

So they were on the same page. “You want me too, Your Highness.” Aron grinned wickedly. “Don’t act all high and mighty.”

“That’s what you think I’m doing?” Minhyun pulled Aron against him. Tension thrummed through Aron’s entire body. “Fuck, Aron. You’re going to be the death of me.”

And Minhyun somehow managed to sound earnest, as he raised Aron’s chin to look down into his eyes. From this close, Minhyun was all Aron was aware of. Though one hand firmly gripped Aron’s chin, the other wandered down Aron’s chest. His eyes held an entire ocean of want.

How could he have ever found those eyes cold? Aron could see all of Minhyun laid out before him. Aron could feel his heart racing wherever their skin touched, hear the slight breathlessness to Minhyun’s voice. He wanted to kiss Minhyun so badly.

And he could. Aron had all night to kiss Minhyun, to make Minhyun his. He wanted Minhyun, and Minhyun wanted him. Aron didn’t know what would come tomorrow, but right now, Minhyun was here, and that was enough. It was more than enough.

Behind them was a month of silence, a kiss in the snow under a linden tree, and the oddest start to a friendship Aron could have imagined.

In front of them was a world that wanted nothing more than to take pieces of them and pull. A world that would use anything it could to prevent Aron from being in the White House for another term. A world that loved them and hated them and was theirs, and always would be theirs because they would make it so. Together.

But all that would happen later. All the questions of who they were as individuals, and what that meant for them together, and what that meant for the world. All the worries.

Because right now, they were two people in a dark bedroom, about to make a fucking great mistake. That was it.

“Kiss me,” Aron breathed, and Minhyun listened.

**Author's Note:**

> i am,, not super happy with this but i hope you enjoyed it!! it didn't really do red, white & royal blue justice unfortunately :( but that's what i get for making an au of a book as brilliantly written as that one
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/turtledovejr) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/overprimrose)


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